The Charlotte News

Tuesday, September 2, 1952

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Sam Summerlin, that U.N. infantrymen repulsed three light Chinese attacks against allied defenses in the "Old Baldy" and "Bunker-Siberia Hill" sectors this date on the western front in Korea. Otherwise along the battlefront, there were brief but sharp patrol clashes.

Overcast skies cut allied air raids over North Korea following the previous day's Navy raids on two major plants. Fighter-bombers were able to attack enemy supply areas behind the western front.

General Eisenhower arrived in Atlanta to cheering thousands of spectators, telling them in a speech that a wholesale cleanup was needed of the "top to bottom mess" in Washington. Thousands lined the ten-mile route from the municipal airport to Hurt Park in downtown Atlanta and jammed Peachtree Street to welcome the General. The police chief estimated a turnout of 100,000 spectators. Mayor William B. Hartsfield estimated that about 35,000 persons had jammed the little park outside the municipal auditorium, with another 5,000 persons hanging from windows and roofs of nearby buildings. Governor Herman Talmadge officially welcomed the General, saying, "Georgia too long has been taken for granted," the reason why the Georgia delegation at the Democratic convention had to "submit to insults and ridicule". He said that the General could have been the Democratic nominee for the presidency if he had sought it in 1948 and that perhaps he could have been nominated even in 1952.

In Springfield, Ill., Governor Stevenson began organizing a campaign drive for the New England states, where he was expected to continue his attack on Taft-Hartley begun in his speech of the prior day in Detroit, Flint and other Michigan cities. An aide to the Governor said that he planned to start his visit to New England on September 18 and spend at least four days campaigning in the major industrial centers there. He was then scheduled to make another appearance in New York, addressing the AFL convention. The Governor's campaign manager, Wilson Wyatt, said that the Governor's speech in Detroit had not been coordinated with that of the President, who had spoken in Milwaukee.

The President, on his first whistle-stop tour of the campaign, in a stop at Parkersburg, W. Va., accused the Eisenhower command this date of increasing the risk of atomic war by "talking loosely about liberating the enslaved peoples of Eastern Europe". He stated that the Republican who had helped in the formulation of the foreign policy, an obvious reference to John Foster Dulles, along with other "masterminds" of the Eisenhower campaign, were playing "cruel, gutter politics with the lives of countless good men and women behind the Iron Curtain". In Cincinnati, hometown of Senator Taft, the President praised him as "intellectually honest", which, he said, was more than could be said of other Republicans. He indicated that the Republicans had to run on Senator Taft's record. He expressed regret that the Senator had not been nominated instead of General Eisenhower, as the Republicans at least knew what they were getting with Senator Taft. He said that the General's nomination was a "disguise" which would not deceive the American people. Police estimated that about 300 persons heard the President speak from the back of his train, with rain threatening in the forecast, beginning as the train pulled out for West Virginia, where the President was scheduled to give five speeches from the rear of the train. In Milwaukee the previous day, the President was interrupted 46 times by applause at a labor rally, as he described General Eisenhower as the "lonely captive candidate" of Republican "special interests" trying to "hide behind a new face".

Former Assistant Attorney General in charge of the tax division, Lamar Caudle, testified in executive session this date regarding his handling of tax cases before he had been fired from his position the prior November. The first case under scrutiny was the alleged attempt to whitewash a grand jury investigation in St. Louis, which eventually had led to the indictment and conviction of former IRB tax collector James Finnegan on charges of misconduct in office. That case was currently on appeal. The second case under scrutiny was one involving war frauds against a Detroit man, which had languished without prosecution for six years before being dropped. Mr. Caudle had been in charge of tax prosecutions for the Justice Department at the time both cases were pending. It had not yet been determined whether he would appear later at a public hearing.

In Japan, it was just another day, on the seventh anniversary of the signing of the Japanese surrender in World War II. It was the first anniversary of Japan's independence, but that also passed with little notice, as leading Japanese newspapers made no mention of it, though they did carry stories regarding the country's first completely free and independent general election in 15 years, to be held the following October 1. Few scars remained in the country from the bombs which had fallen on Japan during the war, except for the desolated spot in Hiroshima where the first atomic bomb fell, preserved as a memorial.

Near Coudersport, Pa., a 19-year old Harvard University student, son of a socially prominent suburban Philadelphia family, had been killed, and the son of Grover Cleveland Bergdoll was seriously wounded the previous night. An operator of the local airport was being held for questioning pending a preliminary hearing. The district attorney said that the man had fired at the two youths with a shotgun as they approached the airport. He had been staying at the office in the airport following two burglaries a week earlier. The elder Mr. Bergdoll had been a well-known auto racer and had been convicted as a World War I draft dodger.

A second hurricane, with winds up to 135 mph, was moving northwestward this date over the Atlantic, about 1,100 miles southeast of Miami. The Weather Bureau in Miami stated that it should continue its present course for several days, far away from land. It was possible that it would change course to the north and not hit land at all. It was dubbed Hurricane "Baker". Hurricane "Able", which had doused the Carolinas with heavy rain during the weekend, caused a flash flood in Ellicott City, Md., on the outskirts of Baltimore, dropping four inches of rain, turning Tiber Creek into a river, which swept through stores and smashed cars, causing an estimated $500,000 in damage to the town. Heavy rains fell in Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania, as the dying storm moved northward.

During the Labor Day weekend, 524 persons had lost their lives in accidents across the country, but the toll was short of the record 658 such deaths a year earlier. Traffic accidents accounted for 403 killed, with 52 having drowned and 69 dying in miscellaneous accidents.

At least 13 persons had died by violence in North Carolina during the Labor Day weekend, starting the prior Friday at 6:00 p.m. and ending at midnight, Monday. The toll included eight traffic deaths, lower than expected, with the hurricane moving through the state keeping the figure down, as many people remained at home. In all, 201 persons were injured in the 127 accidents reported. Twelve people had died in traffic accidents during the weekend in South Carolina.

In Freedom Park Lake in Charlotte, a small alligator, about 12 to 14 inches in length, was spotted during the morning. No one knew how it got there. The caretaker of the lake indicated that it was probably not potentially harmful to humans, but park officials were concerned that it might attack the ducks on the lake, and so were seeking to remove it.

In Charlotte, Wally Fowler of Tennessee was forced to cut short by an hour his first outdoor all-night gospel singing concert in Griffith Park the previous night because of the City's anti-noise ordinance, prompting the 5,000 paying patrons to leave the ballpark blowing their horns at 1:30 a.m. Neighbors had begun calling the police at around midnight regarding the endless guitar-picking and quartet-singing, amplified by loudspeakers. Twice, police came to the singers' platform and asked that the loudspeakers be turned down. Eventually, police cut off the amplifiers completely. Among the singers were the Rangers Quartet, the Statesmen Quartet, the LeFevre Trio and Little Troy Lumpkin, the Blackwood Brothers, and the original Chuckwagon Gang of Fort Worth, Texas. They sang songs such as "Rock My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham", "I'll Fly Away", "Just a Little Talk with Jesus", and "I'm Satisfied". All brought spontaneous applause. We thought it was "Just a Closer Walk with Thee". Maybe, they've got a new one out now.

Anyway, looks like they were headed for Captain Kangaroo and were stopped somewhere along the late-night movie.

The Charlotte police chief, Frank Littlejohn, promised citizens this date that there would be no repeat performance in Griffith Park of the Wally Fowler all-night singing convention and that all loudspeakers would henceforth be shut off at 11:30, including in his next scheduled show at the Armory-Auditorium.

They need, in protest, to go up onto the rooftop of one of the high buildings in the city and shout, "Come in 'n' get us, coppers."

On the editorial page, "Governor Stevenson on Labor" gives credit to the Governor for candor and courage in his Labor Day speech in Detroit the previous day, as the guest of both CIO and AFL. He had not made any rash promises in the speech to labor and pointed out abuses by some unions regarding restricted membership, voting privileges and seniority rights. He stated his support of prohibitions of jurisdictional strikes and boycotts resulting from jurisdictional disputes. He said that he did not believe Taft-Hartley to be a "slave labor" law, as the President had termed it, but did believe it to be "a tangled snarl of legal barbed wire, filled with ugly sneers at labor unions and built around the discredited labor injunction." He said that the best way to deal with it was to junk it and replace it with a new law.

The piece thinks that among the five points he made regarding what the new legislation should contain, the two points regarding labor unions having to be accepted as the responsible representatives of their membership and therefore having to conform to standards of fair conduct, were beyond argument. He did not expressly mention the closed shop, but by implication appeared to favor it. It wonders at his proposed procedure for abolishing Taft-Hartley, whether a replacement law would go into effect immediately upon repeal, or whether there would be an interim during which the Wagner Labor Relations Act of 1935 would be the only labor law on the books. One of his principles had called for outlawing of unfair bargaining practices, but was not specific beyond the presently illegal jurisdictional strikes and boycotts.

The piece expresses considerable reservation about the point regarding rejection of the labor injunction, believing that to remove the power of the courts to enjoin a strike would be too much of a change, even if the injunctive power granted by Taft-Hartley had been spotty in its success. He had made a convincing argument regarding finding a way to settle national emergency strikes and disputes without resort to injunction. He had reasonably proposed giving the President the choice of seizure, arbitration, detailed hearing and recommendation of settlement terms or a return of the dispute to union and management. The piece indicates that it was pleased to note the Governor's emphasis on a minimum of law and reliance on private agreements for establishing industrial peace.

It finds that the speech had been thoughtful and thought-provoking, and it was skeptical only to the extent that some of his statements had been subject to interpretation and not adequately fleshed out. It concludes that the Governor had put himself on record admirably and it hopes that General Eisenhower would show similar frankness.

"The Case of Senator Joe McCarthy" indicates that the Republican primary in Wisconsin was set to take place a week hence on September 9, in which the voters would decide whether to re-nominate Senator Joseph McCarthy. It posits that McCarthyism was "a studied use of the Big Lie by an unscrupulous politician seeking to capitalize on the American people's deep concern over Communism, and willing to trample over the shattered reputations and ruined livelihoods of innocent persons to reach his objective."

A committee of responsible Wisconsin citizens had described the Senator as a person who had been censured by the Wisconsin Supreme Court for destroying evidence in an important case in which he had sat as a judge; who had left the service of his country while war was still raging; who was charged by the Board of State Bar Commissioners with "moral turpitude"; who had been found by the Wisconsin Supreme Court to have violated his oath as a lawyer and a judge; who had accepted $10,000 from a private corporation while serving as a Senator on a committee which passed on policies of a Federal agency, the RFC, which loaned millions of dollars to the same corporation, Lustron; who was required by the Wisconsin Tax Commission to pay thousands of dollars in delinquent taxes; who had been named by Washington correspondents as the "worst Senator" in the Senate; who had been voted by the political scientists of America as the "poorest" Senator in the Senate; who had been denounced by a bipartisan committee of Senators for having participated in a "despicable back street campaign" in Maryland, when Senator Millard Tydings had been running for re-election; who had been accused by another Senate subcommittee as having sought to perpetrate a "fraud and a hoax" on the Congress and the people; who had been accused by the distinguished chairman of the Loyalty Review Board of telling an untruth; and who had been described by the Republican chairman of the State Department Loyalty Security Board as the author of "baseless accusations" designed "not for the public interest but for political advancement in a period of public tension and excitement".

It indicates that the whole nation had an interest in what the Wisconsin voters did with Senator McCarthy, who, it opines, represented "the nadir of political ethics and morality", someone who would "pollute the American political system so long as he is a part of it".

"To Plow or Not To Plow" indicates that Governor Kerr Scott had suggested, out of character, some double entendre when he spoke in Asheville recently, discussing his administration of the prior four years. He stated that he aimed "to plow to the end of the row and not necessarily stop in the shade" when his term came to an end in January.

It suggests that at first glance, the phrase seemed to mean that he was going forward with his "Go Forward" program until he ended his term in favor of his successor-nominate, William B. Umstead. It could also mean, it posits, that the Governor was going to turn right around and run for the Senate in 1954, against incumbent Senator Willis Smith. The piece believes that it was intended to mean the latter. The fact that he had withdrawn the $750,000 appropriation to his home county of Alamance for road-building after it had become so controversial, suggested that he had such a political future in mind.

It makes room for the possibility that it was presuming too much, as the Governor did not appear to plan too far ahead. But his statement in Asheville had provided a strong hint that he enjoyed plowing political furrows and did not intend to quit anytime soon.

As indicated, the Governor would run for the Senate in 1954, but against Alton Lennon, appointed by Governor Umstead to succeed Senator Smith, who would die in mid-1953. Governor Scott would be elected to the Senate, but would die in 1958.

Representative Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts, substituting for Drew Pearson while he was on vacation, suggests that there was nothing to be gained by debating responsibility for the Korean War, that the fact was that the country was involved in it and committed to it as a nation. The issue was how to get out of it with honor and determine the time frame in which that could be done. She indicates that the country could not continue to be asked to sacrifice their sons and daughters in a "cruel, endless 'police action' of containment, rather than a clear-cut achievement of victory." She posits that there was no such thing as a halfway war, that it was all or nothing. She believes that the youth of the land had to be freed from the "shackles of constant military demands and permitted the liberty to plan their lives and their times." She thus regards it as a time for a decision on Korea and the ongoing truce negotiations at Panmunjom, which, she suggests, would be a "ludicrous fiasco" if it were not so tragic.

She suggests that because of the country's vacillating policy, Communism had been planted across the world to such an extent that freedom everywhere was threatened, even the liberty of citizens at home. The issue, however, was not to fix blame but rather to find the method by which to alter the balance of power and achieve a dependable peace. The new President and Congress the following January would have to face that critical issue. The country wanted answers presently and those answers required careful planning. She suggests that the country wanted concrete planning, not generalities and platitudes, that to say that the dominating issue of the campaign was the "organization of the peace" was to assume the conclusion, as everyone favored peace, just as everyone was opposed to sin. But "the pith of the matter is the method to be used."

Joseph Alsop indicates that the controversy surrounding Senator Joseph McCarthy was coming close to producing an open break in the Republican Party, with the national committeeman in Wisconsin, who had been appointed by General Eisenhower following his nomination, having, in an unprecedented move by such a person, asked the General to cancel his Milwaukee visit on September 5, which the General had done. Mr. Alsop recounts the background leading up to that point, based on the fact that General Eisenhower had not gone far enough, in the views of the Wisconsin GOP leaders, in endorsing the re-election of Senator McCarthy. He had denounced McCarthyism insofar as it was character assassination, especially regarding General Marshall, but had also indicated that he would support the Republican nominees for the Senate and Congress throughout the country. His campaign had deliberately scheduled his stops in Wisconsin prior to the primary, so that the General would not have to endorse any of the candidates running for the Republican nomination. In consequence of that neutral stance, the national committeeman had asked General Eisenhower not to visit Milwaukee.

Senator Taft had been asking the General to take positions on several issues as a condition for the Senator's active support. RNC Chairman Arthur Summerfield, Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois, and others in the official Republican machine had been trying to get the General to run "as a sort of pseudo-Robert A. Taft." They had been backed up by pressure from Republican leaders in Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin and Indiana, seemingly organized by the Taft man in Wisconsin, perhaps stimulated by the Senator, himself.

Meanwhile, Governor Sherman Adams of New Hampshire, the General's campaign chief of staff, eventually to serve in that role in the Eisenhower White House, as well as others within the Eisenhower camp, had been urging the General to run as himself, as he had been nominated by the convention.

Mr. Alsop concludes: "Altogether, it is sometimes hard to believe that Republicans are not the nearest thing to lemmings in human form. For what could be stronger proof of a political death wish, than the obvious willingness of many Republicans to lose this vital election, rather than win it in Eisenhower's way instead of their own way?"

An editorial from The State urges, as had an earlier editorial in The News, the State to follow the lead of Montana in establishing road turnouts and advance notice markers placed a thousand feet in either direction from historical markers along the roadsides of the state.

A letter writer congratulates The News and its publisher, Thomas L. Robinson, for the campaign to get out the vote in the fall election in the county. He regards it as a most constructive plan.

A letter writer, a minister who had written previously condemning segregation, condemns "the superficial religion of white segregationists as being unworthy of survival". He favors any religion which made the brotherhood of man its first creed. He indicates that artificial barriers impeded progress, despite persons of all races gaining prominence, such as Booker T. Washington and George W. Carver. He regards segregation as a caste arrangement which no nation could afford, that the system handicapped the moral leadership of the nation in the U.N. He wonders whether some people in the society approved of "unfair customs of Fascist repression designed to keep an entire race of people in economic and political bondage" or whether they believed in individual worth.

A letter writer from Lincolnton indicates that he subscribed to the newspaper and also carried it, thought it the best newspaper in the state, enjoyed reading the "Everyday Counselor" by Dr. Herbert Spaugh, the columns of Dr. Crane, Erich Brandeis and other writers, as well as the letters column. He had especially liked the exchange of letters regarding dogs being man's best friend. He indicates that if he thought that dogs were his best friend, he would jump into the South Fork River close to his home. He urges reading about a gang of dogs which had killed two calves in Cleveland County, around Shelby, as indicated in a report in the newspaper on August 27. He had also read recently of a dog which had gone mad and bitten 15 people, who then had to be hospitalized, as the dog was rabid. He collected for a local newspaper and relates that recently he had gone into a man's yard, whereupon a big dog got after him, requiring him to jump a ten-rail fence to escape. He also complains that one had to hang the garbage can in the top of the tree to prevent the dogs from turning it over and scattering the garbage all over the yard. He indicates that he would not be voting for the letter writer who claimed that dogs were man's best friend, for governor in 1956.

Well, don't move to California in 1966, either.

A letter writer from Concord indicates pleasure in the way the Eisenhower campaign was being conducted and suggests that a continuation of the foreign and domestic policies of the current Administration would be a "drastic threat to our national security". He thinks Governor Dewey's advice to the General to concentrate on the Northern metropolitan areas and forget about the South and rural areas was bad advice, as demonstrated by Governor Dewey's two losses in 1944 and 1948. He believes that the General should devote more than two days to the Southern campaign tour, about to get started. He suggests that a Republican could win the South, as proved by Herbert Hoover in 1928. He also finds satisfaction in the fact that the General had endorsed Senator McCarthy for re-election and believes that the Senator was to be commended for his work in exposing Communists in the Government.

A letter writer compliments the editorial titled "Unwarranted Charges", appearing the previous Saturday, which had found the charges against the United World Federalists, that it was a Communist-front organization, to be preposterous. She believes that the charges were inspired by the Kremlin, itself, for the sake of dividing and conquering, as the UWF, along with NATO and the U.N., represented a blow to the power of Russia.

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