The Charlotte News
Friday, September 26, 1952
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Tom Fesperman of The News, that General Eisenhower had only spent an hour in Charlotte this date, but had addressed 22,000 persons at Memorial Stadium after traveling by motorcade from the Southern Railway Station, along the route of which an additional 18,000 to 28,000 persons had gathered. In his address, he said that inflation and high taxes were hurting the people, that farmers were caught between high taxes and poor supports, that the Democrats had allowed subversion and disloyalty in the Government to reach dangerous levels, that there were too many bureaucrats in Washington, as well as too many scandals of late. He also attacked briefly the compulsory health insurance program which had been proposed by the President. During the 30-minute speech, he elicited a lot of applause when he stated that Charlotte was where the first declaration of independence had been written—a claim of dubious provenance. The crowd applauded heartily, laughed and cheered frequently during the talk. He said, "We can't have 22-caliber people doing 45-caliber jobs." He said that he had come to the people as an American to tell them things which their leaders were failing to provide, not to seek their vote.
Okay, we won't vote for you. It sounds like you're getting ready to shoot us, anyway. Can't your speechwriters come up with a better metaphor? The "big men"-"little men" statement earlier in the week was bad enough.
Local Republican Congressional candidate Charles R. Jonas, running against incumbent Hamilton Jones, appeared to paraphrase the Gettysburg address, in his introduction of General Eisenhower, who, of course, had a farm just outside Gettysburg, within view of the battlefield. He called the General the "most popular hero of our time".
News editor Pete McKnight indicates that the General's visit to the South for the second time suggested proof that the leadership of the Republican Party had finally realized that to win elections and govern the nation, it had to create a national party. He posits that the antipathy between the region and the old Republican Party of Reconstruction days was disappearing, in large part because of departure from traditional policies by the Democrats, the industrialization of the South, the development of a more responsible leadership within the Republican Party in several of the Southern states, the growing opinion of millions that a change of leadership would bring fresh personnel and ideas to the Government, and, most important of all, the personal appeal of General Eisenhower, which cut across party and regional lines. He indicates that his personal appeal was quite evident in the visit to Charlotte. Mr. McKnight came away with the impression that the General believed in his "crusade", as he had called his campaign at the time of his convention acceptance speech, that he believed in the basic values of the society and was speaking from his heart when he spoke of them. He also believes that the General's visit would give a big boost to Mr. Jonas in his run for the Congressional seat—which he would win.
The General and his wife, Mamie, made two appearances while still clad in their pajamas, on the rear platform of their train, the first in Salisbury during the early morning, the second, staged for photographers, while en route from Charlotte to Winston-Salem. He wore a maroon gown over his pajamas and she wore a pink one. Don't let Dick hear about that or he may yet resign the ticket. The Eisenhowers may have gotten into the Cheerwine.
One part of a photo montage on the page shows the right arm of the General in his familiar raised-arm salutation, but with a rarely photographed use of raised fingers as well, in the familiar V-shape, later used regularly by his sidekick in 1968 and onward, to the bitter end. We have oft wondered whether the latter had more than just the victory symbol, popularized by Winston Churchill during the war, in mind—more in the nature of subliminal referencing of numeration, in relation to a notorious date on the calendar, the eve of St. Clement's Day. Indeed, even unto a particularly notorious street address.
Secretary of State Acheson said this date that General Eisenhower, as Army chief of staff prior to the Korean War, had supported an American defense line in the Far East, which had not included Korea. The General had attacked the Secretary the previous Monday for a January, 1950 speech, which the General claimed had brought on the war five months later. The Secretary accused the General of misquoting him and misrepresenting his views, saying that the Pacific defense line, which he had defined in that speech, had been developed by the military authorities, and that the General's opinion had been completely in accordance with it, though it did not include Korea.
In Springfield, Ill., Governor Stevenson said this date that he was contacting contributors to his fund for appointed State employees, which he had established to assist them in making the transition from private to public sector jobs resulting in drastic pay cuts. He said that when his canvass was complete, he would release the names, but that there were so many, it was taking time. He said that he also might make a speech on the fund at the time the names were released. He added that eight or nine key State employees had benefited from the fund and he had been in contact with all of them. He was departing for a two-day tour of Evansville, Ind., Indianapolis, Paducah, Ky., and Louisville, followed by an extended tour the following week.
The State Utilities Commission in Raleigh this date approved a 10-cent fare increase for Duke Power Co. buses and trolleys in Charlotte, Durham, Greensboro, High Point, Salisbury, Winston-Salem, Spencer and East Spencer. It also approved a fare increase for the Safety Bus Co. of Rocky Mount, but did not act on an application by the Safe Bus Co. of Winston-Salem for an increase.
Fight the fare increase. Vote for George O'Brien.
On the editorial page, "Ike Eisenhower—A Great American" finds that the General's quick and easy adjustment from military life to the political hustings had demonstrated his adaptability, as he had done so without losing any of his popularity. Charlotte had provided the General with a rousing welcome this date.
It indicates that the General belonged to the whole nation and it shares in the esteem accorded him, indicating that in 1948, the newspaper had expressed hope that he would run for the presidency at that time. The newspaper had stated on the prior January 8, the day after he had informed journalists in Paris that he was available for the Republican nomination, that it would support him in that effort. It indicates that it still liked him, but was not completely satisfied with his campaign thus far, as he had not sufficiently set forth with specificity his views on many issues.
It indicates that it believed many readers, like the newspaper, had not made a final decision between the candidates and parties in the general election, and would understand if the newspaper observed the campaign a little longer to see what it offered.
We think we have a pretty good idea of where you are going to come out, so stop trying to sound "independent". We are not buying your masquerade. You are a Republican newspaper, and have been for the previous five, nearly six, years since the new ownership took over in January, 1947 and Harry Ashmore departed for Arkansas the following July. Face the fact. You can't kid us, kid, as we read you every single day you print, and have since October, 1937, 15 years ago, and some, sporadically, even before that.
"UNESCO's Big Job" tells of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization having undergone another of periodic attacks, when a California school teacher had been criticized for speaking favorably of the organization to her pupils and then forbidden by the school board from talking about it further other than in an impartial manner. Paul Hoffman, former administrator of the Marshall Plan and presently head of the Ford Foundation, had spoken in her behalf but had failed to impress a majority of the California officials.
Some UNESCO officials were seen as idealists whose statements were suspected of being subversive propaganda. It indicates that in a world with too much emphasis on production of military hardware, there was need for such idealism and that the budget for UNESCO, only 8.2 million dollars the previous year, ensured that it could only have limited impact.
It indicates that it used that money in the Middle East to help 43,000 children of Arab refugees, to reorganize vocational training systems in Iraq, to conduct hydrological and wind power studies aimed at fuller development of desert areas, to provide 43 citizens of the Middle East technical training abroad, to teach several thousand Egyptians literacy, and to establish libraries in the region. The London Continental Daily Mail had recently summed up the main problem which UNESCO sought to remedy by indicating that with all the modern conveniences, the world still had trouble teaching half of its citizens to read or write.
It concludes that basically the organization was trying to educate, and based on the limited budget, would make only a small dent in the problem, but should be encouraged in its worthy endeavor.
"Now Opera Will Be Seen and Heard" tells of singers for years in Charlotte having been troubled by poor acoustics, but this year, Verdi's La Traviata would be performed on October 6 and 7 by the Charlotte Opera Association at East Mecklenburg High School Auditorium, equipped with better acoustics than the previous locus, at Piedmont Junior High School.
It notes that when the three-million dollar auditorium-coliseum complex was completed, opera goers would finally have truly adequate facilities for the presentations. That would occur in 1955.
"Whistle Stop" tells of the editors of the Winston-Salem Journal having responded to the announcement in the News that Charlotte would be the only North Carolina city for a major address by General Eisenhower during his visit through the state by indicating that the train bearing the General would arrive in Charlotte from Salisbury in reverse, while it would move through Winston-Salem in a forward direction. The Journal had decided that was symbolic, indicating that the candidate would make a major bid for support of North Carolinians during his visit to the Twin City.
The piece suggests that it was poppycock, that the General's train had arrived in Charlotte facing forward, and would travel to Winston-Salem in reverse.
It adds that the Associated Press had stated that it would provide greater coverage to the Charlotte visit than it would to the Winston-Salem visit, telling Mayor Marshall Kurfees of the latter city that it could not cover every whistle-stop, to which the editorial indicates that it could add nothing.
That's all very cute, but who cares?
A piece from Harry Golden's Carolina Israelite, titled "Betty Furness and the GOP", tells of Ms. Furness, who advertised Westinghouse appliances on the weekly "Studio One" anthology series on television, and who had appeared doing so during both televised conventions in July, having engaged in a public debate with the Republicans at the GOP convention, including General MacArthur, Congressman Joe Martin, Senator Joseph McCarthy and Senator Everett Dirksen, and, according to the piece, had won every argument. When General MacArthur had said that the country was going to the dogs, Ms. Furness responded with an ad which said that there was a gadget to take moisture out of the air so that when one sat in the living room reading the newspaper, there was no concern regarding undue moisture. When Senator McCarthy said that the country was going down the drain in "creeping socialism", Ms. Furness demonstrated a new broiler with a glass lid, so that the meat could be checked without opening the door. And when Senator Dirksen had said that there was no hope, as the American way of life and standard of living had been destroyed by the New Deal and the Fair Deal, Ms. Furness stated that the day of the icebox and the electric refrigerator was a thing of the past, with an automatically defrosting refrigerator now available. It finds that she was also better to look at than the Republican orators.
The Congressional Quarterly indicates that a study of the House races showed that it was theoretically possible for the Republicans to gain control of the chamber—as they would. Currently, the Democrats had 30 more seats than the Republicans, but the Republicans had a better chance to win the House than they did the Senate for the fact that there were more Republican seats at risk than Democratic seats in the latter body.
The Quarterly's survey shows that there were 37 "doubtful" House districts in 17 states which could go either way in the election. There were 57 "fighting" districts in 24 states, in which one party or the other had the edge. The majority of those districts were in urban areas. No change was expected in the other 341 districts in 44 states, located mainly in the South, Midwest and rural areas.
The Democrats could lose up to 12 seats and still retain control, and the Republicans had to gain at least 18 seats to change the leadership. Republicans were predicting that they might win as many as 70 new seats, including a few in the South, in Virginia, North Carolina, Florida and Texas. The Democrats believed that they would pick up between 25 and 35 seats and that they would retain control of the body, regardless of the winner of the presidential election.
The survey finds that within the 57 fighting districts, Democrats currently held 29 seats and Republicans 16, with 12 being newly created districts, and that the 37 doubtful districts included 15 Democratic seats, 19 Republican seats and three new seats. It was expected that there would be a large number of freshman Congressmen in the next Congress, already assured of having at least 70 in the newly created districts and from retirements, defeats and deaths.
The Quarterly's "Congressional Quiz" has a question from a part-time prospector who believed that he had found uranium deposits and wondered whether he had to file a claim with the Government, to which it responds in the negative, but advises that he would not be able to do anything with the mined ore except by permission of the Atomic Energy Commission.
A second question wonders who would control atomic energy if it ever became a commercial source of power for civilian use, to which it answers that the AEC had been given authority to report to the President on the social, political and economic problems involved with non-military use of atomic energy at a time when it deemed it practicable for development. The President then had to send the report to the Congress, together with his recommendations. Thus, it was not yet clear who would have authority on civilian use of atomic power.
A third question involves whether the Government could take over land by eminent domain to obtain uranium deposits, despite objections by the owner, to which it responds that it could do so under the Atomic Energy Act, but that the AEC had indicated that it did not need that authority as bonuses and incentives allowed by law had made mining of atomic materials sufficiently attractive.
Drew Pearson indicates that the indecision of General Eisenhower regarding the fate of Senator Nixon continuing on the ticket had been largely the result of conflicting advice of two groups of his supporters, one being the professional politicians who accompanied him on his campaign train, led by RNC chairman Arthur Summerfield, who had fought hard to retain Senator Nixon on the ticket, as had Senator Fred Seaton of Nebraska, and Congressman Hugh Scott of Philadelphia. In the other camp were the General's brother, Milton, in favor of dropping Senator Nixon, and General Wilton Persons, one of the General's old military friends, who had remained undecided. Enthusiastic amateurs who boarded the train along the way and had been instrumental in gathering write-in votes for the General during the primaries, had urged dropping the Senator. They believed that the General needed to set an example for the nation to show that he meant business about cleaning up Washington corruption. They argued that if the convention delegates had known about the expense fund of the Senator at the time of the nomination, he would not have been the nominee.
Another factor in the delay in the decision was that the General's advisers had kept the news of the fund from him for 18 hours after they had gotten word through the United Press on Thursday afternoon a week earlier, waiting until the next morning to impart it to the General, who seldom read the newspapers carefully. Meanwhile, his advisers had stayed up until the wee hours of the morning in Omaha trying to determine what to do, as the General slept in the adjoining railroad car. The following morning, it had been suggested initially that the Senator might fly to Kansas City or St. Louis to discuss things with the General, but it was finally determined that Senator Seaton would phone Mr. Nixon at the next stop of the train, as he did. Senator Nixon had voiced some strong opinions during the phone call, asking that no action be taken until he could provide a full statement to the public. The General's advisers urged him to play down the story and proceed on the campaign trail as if nothing had happened.
In Kansas City, at the same Muelebach Hotel where the President maintained a penthouse when he was in town, the General met with his staff, which included Mr. Summerfield, his chief of staff Governor Sherman Adams, his brother, press secretary Jim Hagerty, Senator Seaton, General Persons, and Brig. General Robert Cutler. They advised the General to make another statement and then wait for Senator Nixon to provide his public explanation, and that the General meet with the press in an off-the-record conference and reiterate his determination to clean up government, which was done the following day, the prior Saturday. By coincidence, the General had then used the same expression used by President Warren Harding in defending some of his Administration officials during the Teapot Dome scandal, that he wanted to ensure that Mr. Nixon gave an accounting to show that his finances were "as clean as a hound's tooth".
Senator Taft, meanwhile, was upset at the General for not initially backing Senator Nixon, which he believed had caused the major headlines surrounding the story. The General was upset with his staff for not telling him about the story when it had initially broken on Thursday night, and was also upset at Senator Nixon for talking to the press before clearing it with the General. He had especially not liked the Senator's initial statement blaming "Communists and crooks" for the newspaper stories on the fund. The General was also upset with Mr. Summerfield for stating that Senator Nixon would definitely remain on the ticket, before any decision had been finally made, that is, only after the Senator had provided his public statement.
Mr. Pearson indicates that Bert Andrews, an ace political writer for the New York Herald Tribune who had originally introduced Senator Nixon to General Eisenhower, had been one of the persons who urged dropping the Senator from the ticket, believing that the matter had materially hurt the ticket and that the General would be assured of election if he demonstrated that he was against any suspicion of unethical conduct.
Marquis Childs tells of the President having gathered his staff around him in the wake of Senator McCarthy's overwhelming primary victory in Wisconsin to discuss the Senator's demagoguery, wondering whether it was spreading beyond Wisconsin. In response, the President wanted to conduct a full-scale whistle-stop tour of at least 17 states, rivaling the tour of 1948 when he was running. An additional part of his motivation for hitting the hustings was to respond to General Eisenhower's criticism of the Administration's foreign policy, which the General had helped to create and carry on, including, according to the President, the decision to follow the U.N. resolutions and participate in the police action in Korea.
During the 15-day tour, there would be as many journalists aboard the train as there had been in 1948, but the difference was that the President of late was having problems relating to the people. In July, he had spoken in Arkansas in favor of the popular incumbent Governor Sid McMath, who then lost by 100,000 votes in the primary. On Labor Day, he had spoken in Milwaukee at a AFL and CIO-sponsored rally, originally intending to attack Senator McCarthy and McCarthyism in general, toning that down somewhat, but nevertheless resulting in the Senator's overwhelming triumph in the primary.
Mr. Childs suggests that the President had never realized that he had failed to connect with the people on Communism, ever since he had called the Alger Hiss matter in fall, 1948 a "red herring". In March, 1950, shortly after Senator McCarthy's initial claim that there were 57 or more Communists within the State Department, and the resultant outcry against his accusations, it had been suggested by some within the Administration that he appoint a blue-ribbon panel, with the selections to be made by the Supreme Court, the White House and the Senate, to investigate the dangers of Communism in the country. He suggests that had he done so, he would not be needing at present to provide a defense for the integrity of his Administration.
Actually, there was a three-person committee headed by Gordon Gray which performed a study of the loyalty boards and, of course, the FBI regularly made an assessment of the number of Communists within the country.
Robert C. Ruark tells of Charlie Chaplin being a delightful actor who had contributed much to the richness of the country's theatrical past. But now, because of the Justice Department's sudden order, issued after his departure to return to his native England for six months, he might be barred from re-entering the country, depending on the outcome of an INS hearing. Mr. Ruark wonders why the Government was so bothering after eight years since his acquittal on alleged Mann Act violations for transporting a woman across state lines for immoral purposes, and his "wartime performance as a non-patriot" and association with "violent pinks", all of which made him technically susceptible to the ban.
As the country had put up with "this pitiful little poseur and a great many of his nastinesses for a reasonable lifetime, on the strength of his wistful portrayal of pantomimic tramps", during which time he had not cost the country a war or hastened a Communist takeover, he sees no reason for this sudden action. He stresses that Mr. Chaplin was an actor who was rich and paid ample taxes, which Mr. Chaplin had stressed during the war to which he objected. He finds him "a silly little man, whose talent is stereotyped and perpetuated by a legend which says we got to love him because he is so pitiful and wistful and can express great pathos with a quirk of a little Hitler mustache and a pair of flapping shoes." He finds that in anyone else, such props would have been considered a burlesque, but in Mr. Chaplin, they were the grounds for reverence.
He believes that Imogene Coca and
Sid Caesar
He concludes that unless they caught him setting fire to the White House or stealing the atomic bomb secrets, persecution of him at such a late date did more harm than good vis-à-vis the Communists. For once an undesirable stayed around too long, there was a kind of sponsorship of him in the country, and Mr. Chaplin had become a part of the American scene, just as Paul Robeson had, and just as "gaudy billboards" scarring the countryside.
Framed Edition
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