The Charlotte News

Friday, May 29, 1953

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the Communists had rejected at least one major reported concession of a new allied truce plan submitted in secret sessions the prior Monday at Panmunjom in Korea, the truce talks currently being in recess for a week until the following Monday. The allied proposal rejected by the Communists was that the ultimate disposition of any prisoners who refused repatriation be determined by the U.N., whereas the Communists had insisted on a post-armistice political conference as the ultimate arbiter of that issue. The original proposal by the U.N. had indicated that after a period of time during which the Communists would be entitled to speak with the prisoners refusing repatriation to try to convince them that it was safe to return to their homelands, they would be freed if they continued to resist repatriation. Chief Communist negotiator General Nam Il of North Korea indicated that it would be "inconceivable" to have the Communist prisoners held by the allies turned over to the U.N. for final disposition, when they regarded the U.N. as "a belligerent". In December, 1952, the U.N. had approved a plan proposed by India that the prisoners refusing repatriation have their fates finally determined by the U.N. The proposed allied plan, countering the Communists' proposal, remained officially secret, and this rejected proposal had been obtained from an anonymous, reliable source.

The South Korean Government wanted the allied plan revised or had threatened to fight on alone and boycott henceforth the truce talks. The lead South Korean negotiator, Maj. General Choi Duk Shin, wanted the proposal prepared anew, starting with the resumption of the talks the following Monday and to grant "full consultation" in advance to the South Korean Government in preparation of that proposal. Choi indicated that his statements, however, as contained in a letter to lead U.N. delegate, Lt. General William Harrison, represented only his own personal point of view.

In ground fighting in Korea, U.S. and Turkish troops withdrew from two outposts the previous night, as a large Communist Chinese drive increased along the ancient invasion route to Seoul, 30 miles to the south, with battling artillery engaged in duel beneath a full moon. Waves of fighter-bombers dropped bombs and napalm on the attackers along the five-mile front in a row of hills guarding the road to Seoul. On the western front, the Chinese struck with 8,500 men and on the central front area, with 6,500 men, seizing three outpost hills east of Panmunjom by Thursday night. British Commonwealth troops were last reported holding firm on "The Hook", ten miles northeast of Panmunjom, where two Chinese battalions, comprised of about 1,500 men, had been repulsed. The British War Office said in a communiqué that the British at that location had inflicted a "crushing defeat" against the Chinese.

In the air war, U.S. Sabre jets shot down two enemy MIG-15s, probably destroyed another and damaged three others, putting Sabre jet pilots within 11 kills of the single-month record for the Korean War, established in September, 1951.

A firsthand account of the battle for the Vegas outpost on the Western front is provided from a Marine sergeant and a corporal, the latter from Concord, N.C., who operated a tank, hit twice by mortar shells. He said that the strikes had thrown a lot of hot shrapnel down his back and inside his flak jacket after one of the shells had blown open the tank hatch, burning a few blisters on his back but otherwise not causing injury. At that point, he had said, "Let's get the hell out of here."

Good idea...

Despite their differences regarding U.S. policies in Korea and the Far East, the President and Senator Taft avoided a party rift in their relations, with the White House taking the initiative hours after the President had said at a news conference the previous day that he did not agree with the Senator's assertion that the U.S. might as well forget the U.N. as far as the Korean War was concerned, calling the Senator's office to inquire about his health status, after he had been hospitalized in Cincinnati with an undiagnosed hip pain—shortly to be diagnosed with cancer, from which he would die at the end of July. Aides of the Senator said that he would not comment for several days, if at all, in response to the President's statements. The Senator's son said by telephone from Cincinnati that the statement of the Senator, which his son had read on Tuesday night in the absence of the Senator, had stated that he was giving only his personal views on the Far East and that they were not intended as criticism of what was being done. He said that the opinions expressed by his father could not be construed as a break with the President and would not be reflected in the Senator's opposition to Administration policies. But the two statements did leave the two most powerful men in the Republican Party at odds regarding the U.N.'s future role in the Far East should the Korean truce talks fail. The Senator wanted all of the issues in the Far East, including Formosa and Indo-China, included in a single agreement. But the President had said the previous day at the press conference that objectives were not attained in one great sudden agreement where all sides could sit down and then sign. He said that if the Korean truce were accepted, the allies would then be in a better position to go ahead with a just program in Korea than was currently possible. The Senator had said in his statement that the present truce would be "extremely unsatisfactory" since it would divide Korea unnaturally and could wind up releasing a million Communist Chinese soldiers from their current combat duties to be used against Nationalist Formosa and French Indo-China.

The new Health, Education and Welfare Department had provided dismissal notices to about 1,200 employees of its former constituent agencies, based on budget cuts. Some of the notices might be rescinded were the Senate to approve more money in appropriations than had been voted by the House for the coming fiscal year.

The National Association of Attorneys General formulated a plan the previous day to be presented to Congress regarding compulsory treatment of narcotics addicts, based on the rising rate of drug addiction. The plan would utilize narcotics hospitals under Federal control in Lexington, Ky., and Fort Worth, Tex., for initial hospitalization, after which the states would assume care and treatment of the patients.

Former Governor of Illinois and 1952 Democratic nominee for the presidency, Adlai Stevenson, flew this date to the upper Nile River city of Luxor in Egypt, 450 miles south of Cairo, for a day of sightseeing among the temple ruins of the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes. Mr. Stevenson was due back in Cairo the following day, continuing with his world tour.

In London, a Comet jetliner sped across the Atlantic for the first time with 27 men aboard, en route to Ottawa, Canada, via Iceland and Goose Bay, Labrador, the first of two 500 mile-per-hour British planes built for the Royal Canadian Air Force, the second to follow the following month. The plane was set to cruise at 445 mph at an altitude of 36,000 feet, across the distance of 3,545 miles.

In Paris, a four-engine Douglas DC-6B transport plane completed this date the first nonstop commercial airline flight from Los Angeles to Paris, covering the 5,700 miles in 20 hours and 28 minutes, averaging 278 mph, breaking the previous nonstop distance record for commercial planes of 3,900 miles. The plane carried no passengers. The crew had run into heavy weather over Hudson Bay and Greenland, but otherwise "everything worked like a charm."

Condemned atomic spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg had their execution date at Sing Sing Prison in New York rescheduled for June 15, following the latest refusal by the Supreme Court to grant them review—though the high Court would again revisit the matter one more time before the execution date. Their defense counsel had sought delay of resetting the execution date until the following Monday, a move vigorously opposed by the U.S. Attorney.

In Birmingham, Alabama, a young girl who had been married at 14 years of age and become a widow at 16, had been cleared of murder charges in Juvenile Court, following a two-hour hearing, related to her husband's death, and intended to return home to West Virginia. The fatal shooting had occurred at the couple's home three weeks earlier. The husband, 21, had been stationed at the Birmingham air base. The couple had a five-month old daughter and the wife was expecting another child. The shooting occurred during a scuffle after milk had been spilled on the baby's face, causing the mother to become hysterical, prompting her husband to attempt to restrain her, after which they struggled over a pistol which he maintained in their bedroom. A pastor of a church in the woman's hometown in West Virginia had testified that the couple, who had met in his church, had financial difficulties most of their married life after running away together from home. He said that when he had urged the young girl to return home, she replied that she had rather live with her husband under a rock and have nothing than to live in a palace without him and have everything.

In Charlotte, a 17-day search for a convicted murderer had ended the previous night when the escaped convict walked into the County Police station and surrendered. He had been sentenced to 15 to 20 years for second-degree murder in Mecklenburg County Superior Court in 1946, after being arrested in January of that year. No details were provided of the escape. He did not say where he had been during the interim 17 days.

In Raleigh, two black men who had been convicted of rape were executed in the gas chamber at Central Prison this date. One of the men insisted to the end that he was innocent of the charge on which he was convicted, that of having raped a white woman of Windsor, who was a deaf mute, on July 18, 1947. The other executed inmate had confessed his guilt when interviewed shortly after arrival in prison, convicted of raping and brutally beating a 15-year old Winston-Salem school girl on June 15, 1950, with the girl having hovered near death for several days afterward. Both men told the five condemned men they left behind on death row to "do right and be good". About 27 persons, including reporters and other witnesses, crowded into the small observation room to observe the two executions. One of the reporters fainted shortly before the executions ended, from the intense heat in the room. The inmate who contended that he was innocent had been granted new trials twice by the State Supreme Court, and had been re-convicted each time. (In the reversal of the second conviction, delivered in 1949 by Justice Sam J. Ervin, the Court had stated: "No good object will be served by recounting the facts in detail. It will suffice for present purposes to note that the State's evidence tended to show that shortly after 10:30 p.m. on 18 July, 1947, the prisoner assaulted and raped the prosecutrix with savage brutality in the yard at her home a mile and a half from Windsor, and the prisoner's testimony tended to establish an alibi." The opinion went on to state that articles of clothing of the defendant and the prosecutrix were properly admitted into evidence, showing tears and stains corroborative of the prosecution's theory of the case. The Court had also held that the trial court did not err in admitting evidence of defendant's incriminating statements to police officers soon after the crime had been committed, as the statements were voluntary in nature.) Both men had petitions for writs of habeas corpus jointly heard before the U.S. Supreme Court, petitioner Speller, the man who proclaimed his innocence, designated "No. 22" in the opinion, raising the claim of systematic exclusion of black citizens from the grand and petit juries in Bertie County, and the other petitioner, Brown, "No. 32", raising the same issues of systematic exclusion in Forsyth County, plus the issue of whether his confession was coerced, the Supreme Court having held, 6 to 3, that there were no Constitutional violations regarding those issues, with separate dissents filed by Justices Felix Frankfurter and Hugo Black, each joined by Justice William O. Douglas. The previous day, several groups of persons had called on Governor William B. Umstead to commute the death sentences to life in prison, but the Governor had refused. One of those making the plea was a young Methodist minister from the Greensboro area, who had started a fast on the south steps of the State Capitol, aimed at abolishing the death penalty, with a special plea to the Governor to commute the sentences of the two condemned men. The Governor's office indicated that he received several phone calls from persons who had read about the minister's fast and had urged the Governor to change his mind regarding the commutations.

Parenthetically, while we in no way mean at all to be mockish of the actual 1953 story of these tragic rapes and tragic executions for same, as, aside from the Eighth Amendment issues, Mr. Speller, if one accepts the reasoning of the Supreme Court dissents, never got to have a jury selected from a fairly drawn pool hear his alibi, we do have to use this story for a moment as an example of the absurdity of adopting the convention of using the capitalized "Black" and "White" to represent, respectively, African-Americans and Caucasians in print, as now being adopted in recent days in 2020 by the Associated Press and other journalistic organizations as a new style preference, actually a return to an old style preference of "Negro", just dressed up differently. Utilizing such an absurd convention, one would be entirely correct in stating this story in summary as follows: "Today, in Raleigh's Central Prison, two Black men, one of whom was Brown and the other, Speller, were executed for the rapes of two White women in separate incidents involving each defendant individually, in two different counties, despite Justice Black of the Supreme Court, and, separately, Justice Frankfurter, joined in both dissents by Justice Douglas, finding that the convictions of both Black men were had unconstitutionally by grand and petit juries drawn in a manner which systematically excluded Blacks." If you think that style improves substance and makes for a clearer story, then you go right on ahead with your acquiescence to mob rule. But we shall stick with stress of the facts and various issues in a given story, itself, rather than over-emphasis of generalized style points utilized usually by novelists and poets, amounting to subliminal editorialization in presentation of news reports which ought be as objective as possible and minimize the presence of the writer for the sake of not distracting the reader to superficial, ancillary matter, but instead wind up overly highlighting of differences in skin pigmentation, quite divisively, suggesting in the end one sort of Supremacy or Another at Work: Esse quam videri.

Also in Raleigh, the State Highway Commission voted this date to retain W. H. Rogers, Jr., as chief State highway engineer. Mr. Rogers had served as administrative assistant under former Governor Gregg Cherry, whose term had ended in 1949. He became chief engineer shortly after former Governor Kerr Scott, succeeding Governor Cherry, took office. He had directed Governor Scott's 200 million dollar secondary road-building program. Among the matters considered this date by the Commission was a progress report of Ninth Division commissioner James A. Gray, Jr., of Winston-Salem, who reported on restoration work being performed at Old Salem, saying that in the future, he might urge State assistance in helping to solve traffic problems through Old Salem. That will lead to having to move that big tin coffee pot where the Civil War soldier hid, won't it?

In New York, a one-time campus leader and 1948 honors graduate of Brown University, where he had been president of the student body, played varsity football and was a member of several campus organizations, but presently was employed as a $75 per week salesman trainee and heavily in debt, was charged with an unsuccessful hold-up attempt. In a midtown restaurant restroom, he had changed into clothing which he had in a suitcase and then walked to a nearby restaurant, gripping an office stapler in his pocket as if it were a gun, provided a note to the cashier which told her not to utter a sound, that he was desperate, whereupon the cashier screamed and the man fled to the initial restaurant and changed back into his original clothes, but then upon exiting the restaurant, was recognized and arrested. He was booked on charges of attempted robbery, assault and a weapons law violation.

In Wilmington, Calif., an 11-year old boy, four months earlier, had found a shivering stray puppy, took it home, fed it and cared for it, naming it Lightning. But the prior Wednesday, the boy's parents had told him that the dog had grown too big and would have to be given up, whereupon, a few hours later, the boy, his bicycle and the dog were found to be missing. Police searched in vain, but that night, the boy telephoned his mother saying that he could not give Lightning away and hung up. The previous day, the police had found the boy and his bike in an alley where he had spent the night, but Lightning was missing, having run away during the darkness.

Don't worry, you will next find Thunder...

On the editorial page, "A Soft Answer, but Firm" indicates that the only problem with the President's press conference statement the previous day, regarding Senator Taft's speech, in which he had said that the U.S. ought to abandon the U.N. regarding the settlement of the Korean War, was that it was not strong enough. It indicates that the President had a great ability to hold his temper in check—except when it came to golf and reporters who complained of his too frequently taking to the links, but that will only come forth later.