The Charlotte News
Wednesday, June 10, 1953
FIVE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page
reports, via William C. Barnard, that in Seoul, at least 2,000 young
students shouting "Yankee go home!" and other slogans had
paraded through the streets this date in the second day of angry
demonstrations
President Syngman Rhee announced through a spokesman that he would not leave Korea at such a grave time to carry a personal protest to Washington. The chief of staff of the South Korean Army arrived this date in Seoul from the U.S. to take command of the nation's 16 U.S.-trained divisions, and South Korea's draft bureau ordered all Korean men between ages 19 and 25 to be ready for call-up as Government leaders reiterated threats to fight on alone, if a truce left Korea divided. Men between 17 and 19 and 25 and 40 years of age were ordered to report their whereabouts and any change in draft status. South Korea had branded the armistice a "death sentence" and "sellout".
Meanwhile, at Panmunjom, staff officers were working on final details of the truce, which could be signed possibly during the current week. U.N. and Communist truce negotiators handed the staff officers the job of putting the armistice into final form and then recessed indefinitely. The truce might be delayed as Switzerland had announced that it would not serve on the five-nation prisoner repatriation commission unless South Korea approved the truce. U.S. officials in Washington expressed hope that Switzerland would reconsider its refusal, and it was understood that the State Department had made that plain to the Swiss legation. Authorities feared that unless the Swiss changed their mind, the whole question of commission membership might have to be reopened between the U.N. Command and the Communists, delaying and complicating final agreement of armistice terms. Sweden, also nominated to participate on the commission, indicated that it would do so without any condition of acceptance by South Korea. India, another member, indicated likewise, and it was anticipated that Poland and Czechoslovakia would also participate without conditions. It was feared, however, that a Swiss refusal might cause India and Sweden to reassess their positions.
Officials at U.N. headquarters in Tokyo were operating on the assumption that at the last minute, President Rhee would agree to the truce terms, but admitted that it was a calculated risk. There had been no threats, promises or pleading with the aging President. One source indicated that they believed he would "drive the buggy to the edge of the cliff, but never whip the horses a step further."
In the air war, two MIG-15s were shot down by Maj. James Jabara, who had been the first jet ace pilot, scoring his 11th kill during his 97th mission. Another MIG was probably destroyed. Thunderjet and Sabre jet fighter-bombers struck two enemy airfields in North Korea. During the night, 40 B-26 bombers had attacked enemy positions along the western and central fronts.
In the ground war, only brief skirmishes occurred along the muddy battlefront, as patrols prowled no-man's land to make sure that no surprise attack was in the offing.
The U.S. Eighth Army headquarters announced that U.N. divisions had killed or wounded 4,000 enemy troops during the week ended the prior Sunday, a 60 percent increase over the casualties inflicted the prior week. The Army had dropped its weekly report on the number of enemy prisoners taken, apparently coordinating the move with U.N. negotiators at Panmunjom, with prisoner information now being classified for security purposes.
Senator Taft said that his hip ailment was serious and gave up his role as day-to-day floor leader in the Senate this date, with Senator William Knowland of California taking over the job. Senator Taft, hobbling on crutches, told reporters that he would retain his title and continue as Senate Majority Leader but not with the regular floor routine. He would attend White House legislative conferences each week and Senate Republican policy sessions, as well as looking after other leadership details as long as they did not interfere with treatment of his hip problem. He indicated that he expected Senator Knowland to remain as acting floor leader for most of the remaining session. He said that doctors had told him that there was an impairment of his left hip bone which had to be treated with X-rays and cortisone. He said that he did not know exactly what was wrong with his hip bone, though his doctors did. He said that he had first noticed the severe pains in his hip in mid-April before having flown to Augusta, Ga., to play golf with the President. He said that he did not know what had caused the ailment, that he recalled no fall and was not blaming it on golf. In fact, the Senator had been diagnosed with cancer and would die from it at the end of July.
The President was starting a round of speeches, to take place during the ensuing five days, combined with a vacation, heading first to Minneapolis, where he would make a speech on the international situation, not yet released to journalists. He would then fly to North Dakota, South Dakota, New Hampshire and New York for more speeches. The President told photographers, when they asked for a photograph of him in his traditional two-armed raised salute as he departed from National Airport in Washington, that he would, for a change, give a goodbye without a wave. He planned to vacation in the South Dakota Black Hills area during the trip, with golf and fishing. During the trip, he would remain in constant communications regarding developments on the Korean armistice, and would return to Washington Sunday night.
Representative Melvin Price of Illinois, a member of the joint Atomic Energy Committee, said this date, in a speech prepared for delivery before the House, that the country's supply of atomic weapons was dangerously inadequate as to quantity and variety, and proposed careful study before industry was allowed to operate atomic facilities for the production of civilian energy needs.
In Rome, Premier Alcide De Gasperi's pro-Western Government coalition had reportedly won a narrow 16-vote majority in the lower Chamber of Deputies in Italy's parliamentary elections, held the prior Sunday and Monday, but trailed the combined opposition of extreme left and right parties in the popular vote by 115,000 ballots. A Government spokesman announced that the centrist coalition had won 303 of the total 500 seats in the Chamber, and a reduced seven-seat majority in the Senate. The Government said that it might yet win the popular majority because about 1.25 million votes had been ruled invalid in contests by the opposition and were still subject to review.
In Fukuoka, Japan, Eleanor Roosevelt visited Japanese coal miners working 2,700 feet underground this date, with the former First Lady expressing surprise that women were working in the pits.
It was reported from New Delhi that the Indian tricolor flag was planted atop Mount Everest, along with the British, Nepalese and U.N. flags at the time of the successful ascent to the peak for the first time by Edmund Hillary and Bhutia Tensing, the latter, though from Nepal, claimed by India as a national hero.
Ralph Gibson of The News
reports from Charlotte that 26 Baptist ministers in the city and the
county had signed a petition asking the City and County School Boards
to withdraw their support of Bible teaching in the public schools.
The petition was expected to be signed by the remainder of Mecklenburg
County's 50 Baptist ministers. It had been adopted unanimously in
resolution form by the ministers present at the Conference at
Pritchard Memorial Baptist Church, indicating that it was
unconstitutional, as determined by the U.S. Supreme Court, to teach
the Bible in public schools. (Don't ye worry, incidentally, about the little doggies from 1939, likewise the setters of '63. They received a reprieve, à couver un fait accompli, for the time being—at least for a few months, elucidative of the rime's freeing. But we shall leave the rest of that story for another day, perhaps another 17 years down the road...
A Senate Appropriations subcommittee this date added $481,300 to the Interior Department budget for construction of the Blowing Rock section of the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia and North Carolina.
The death toll from the spring
season's rash of tornadoes
On the editorial page, "A Year of Grace for Reciprocal Trade" indicates that House Ways & Means Committee chairman Daniel Reed had finally permitted the Committee to report out a bill extending the Reciprocal Trade Act for another year, as had been urged by the President. With the support of Democrats assured for the extension bill, it ought pass both houses.
Protectionist sentiment within the Republican Party remained strong, and Mr. Reed knew that the Committee would back him if he simply pigeonholed the extension bill, but was not so certain about the full House, and so had adopted an excuse, saying that he feared an excess profits tax rider might be tacked on to the Trade Act, but, after finally being assured by Republican leaders in both houses that such would not be the case, gave in.
In changing the size of the six-man Tariff Commission to seven members, it would give the President an opportunity to shape tariff policy during the ensuing year. If he appointed protectionists, extension of the Act could be largely nullified, but if he appointed advocates of lower tariffs, the Administration ought make realistic progress toward its "trade, not aid" objective. The President had frequently voiced support for freer trade among the nations of the world, and, it suggests, his stewardship of the Reciprocal Trade program during the ensuing year would be a test not only of his sincerity but also of his ability to convince Republicans of the Old Guard that the lowering of trade barriers at home and abroad was essential for a peaceful world.
"Trying To Buy the Farm Vote" indicates that, as noted a few weeks earlier, every Eisenhower domestic budget request had been a reduction from that of the Truman Administration, and to the best of its knowledge, the House had further reduced budget requests of each department, with one exception, that for the Department of Agriculture, for which the President had sought 712 million dollars, which the House had raised by 9 million dollars. Since the House action, Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson had been granted his requested powers of reorganization, which he believed would help in economizing measures in the Department. It had hoped, therefore, that the Secretary would be able to save the 9 million tacked to the budget by the House. Instead, the prior Monday, the Senate had added yet another 4 million to the 9 million added by the House. And so, after a reconciliation conference, probably around 10 million dollars would be added to the Agriculture Department budget because a group of Congressmen hoped to buy the farm vote by throwing around taxpayer money.
"Rhee's Rancor" indicates that the current hostility of South Koreans toward the U.N. allies in Korea was unfortunate but understandable, as they likely felt as a boxer would if, around the seventh round, when he was hurt, but not so badly as his opponent, the referee called the fight as a draw. If part of the United States were occupied by a foreign power and the U.N. decided to negotiate a peace which would leave the aggressors in the country, Americans would be quite upset as well. But South Korea would not be able to maintain its adamant position against the truce for very long, for without U.S. and U.N. aid, it would be defenseless. President Rhee, being practical and ornery, understood that point, and the sooner he was able to impress it on the people of South Korea, the better things would be.
"On with Oahe" indicates
that the name conjured up visions of Oahu, hula dancers, palm trees,
and blue Pacific waters, but, in fact, was a dam project
It finds that it was an excellent example of the way lobbies, rather than logic, often determined appropriations.
"Idea for a Gadget Man" indicates that there was one way every citizen could have influence which counted in Washington anent the budget, by writing more legibly on mail. A story in the New York Times had reported that it cost $71,000 the previous year, just in New York City, to handle dead letters. Over four million pieces of improperly addressed mail and over 200,000 parcels never reached their intended addressees, and the Post Office had to expend quite a lot of money to return over 13 million letters in that category. The answer to the problem was improved penmanship. It also favors a return rubber address-stamp, suggests that some blind man develop a concession out of it and sell them to those who would rather stamp instead of write their return address.
A piece by Simeon Stylites—presumably not the 5th Century ascetic, San Simeon—, in the Christian Century, titled "A Doctor in the House", indicates that the question as to whether there was a doctor in the house was often repeated in anxious tones in theaters and concert halls, with the result that often the response was that the doctor was in the office. He reflects back to the "good old days" when, if one got sick, he could send for the doctor and have him come to the house. Presently, if one got sick, the patient had to hobble down to the doctor's office and wait for an hour and a half while reading the National Geographic for June, 1941.
Haven't you got the issue of August, 1941 around?
He indicates awareness that there was still "a shining army of martyrs" who would go to a house to see a patient, but increasingly, with specialization in medicine, the best one could expect was to be told to come to the office. If one called in to say that a relative had a fever of 105 and could not breathe, and in addition had just fallen down the basement stairs and broken both legs, the reply from the doctor would likely be, "Have him come down to the office tomorrow."
He fears that family physicians
would eventually be reduced to one doctor
The Congressional Quarterly indicates that all the preliminary work on Federal appropriations was not done in the Bureau of the Budget offices and in Congressional committees, but, as pointed out by Senator Karl Mundt, was accomplished often in dinner table conversation, as in the case of the Oahe Dam in South Dakota, as previously indicated by Drew Pearson and further explained in the above editorial, having been saved in the budget by Mrs. Mundt after Budget director Joseph Dodge had cut it out. It again explains in detail how it came about.
Drew Pearson indicates that the wife of the President's son, Maj. John Eisenhower, had said that there was nothing like having two Secret Servicemen as babysitters, staying with the Eisenhower grandchildren 24 hours per day. Her husband was expected back from Korea in about five months and meanwhile, she got a little bored with the folderol of the White House, stayed at home at Highland Park, N.Y., as much as possible.
The Secret Service had checked the servants, caddies and staff of the Burning Tree Club, where the President golfed, but not its members.
The President was getting more short-tempered with critics inside the Republican Party.
Press secretary James Hagerty met once per week with all information officers of major Government departments except one, Herbert Little, press aide to Secretary of Labor Martin Durkin.
Former Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn confided to friends that he had never been more worried about the state of the nation and the lack of leadership in Washington.
The Tariff Commission had sent a secret report to the President, recommending drastic curbs on dairy imports, to ease the growing butter and cheese surplus.
High-pressure salesmen had been selling GIs so much insurance that the Army had banned insurance agents from soliciting the soldiers while they were still in basic training.
Mr. Pearson continues relating such short snippets.
Air Force chief of staff General Hoyt Vandenberg had given the first official tip as to what previously had been an official secret, Russia's growing stockpiles of atomic bombs, one reason he wanted not to have the Air Force budget cut. Information had been sent to the White House by the Atomic Energy Commission that the Russians planned to explode new atomic bombs during the summer, it having been three years since the Soviets had tested their last atomic weapons, with the strange silence puzzling nuclear experts. The White House had been informed that the Russians had deliberately avoided staging tests large enough for U.S. detection equipment to pick up. Instead, they had been constructing bigger atomic plants, and sometime during the summer, the program would be far enough along that they could test a considerable number of new bombs.
The "FBI club" in Washington was comprised of Federal employees who had been "Fired by Ike".
Senator Joseph McCarthy, who had
plenty of money to throw around, recently had moved into a plush,
air-conditioned suite on the ninth floor of the new Woodner Hotel in
residential Washington. The second day after he moved in, someone had
placed a large sign in the lobby facing the elevator, saying: "Dear
Joe: See me tonight at 2 A.M. I have a lot to tell you. Red
An exclusive nudist club in the woods between Washington and Annapolis, Md., had recently gone out of business.
Marquis Childs indicates that the U.S. had detonated 43 atomic devices to three by the Soviet Union, though the score, as reliably determined from the nuclear content of air and clouds, might be deceptive of the measure of atomic strength of the two nations, as most believed that the Soviet Union was building up stocks of one type of bomb, in contrast to the U.S., with many kinds of atomic weapons being made and tested.
Atomic Energy Commission chairman Gordon Dean had just announced the development of an atomic breeder reactor, able to produce nuclear fuel as fast as it was consumed, opening up new potential for the previously limited supplies of uranium and for the more commonly found thorium. Developments in atomic technology, which Mr. Dean had not announced and that would not be announced in the foreseeable future, were perhaps even more spectacular, having to do with the ultra-secret progress in the hydrogen bomb.
A controversy within the AEC and among the physicists had developed over the hydrogen bomb versus conventional atomic bombs, as to whether the hydrogen bomb could work and whether the use of great quantities of fissionable material to detonate it, which might otherwise be employed in proven conventional atomic weapons, would be worth the candle, along with the debate over its catastrophic destructiveness. The most optimistic advocate of it had been Dr. Edward Teller, one of the physicists who had worked from early in World War II on the development of atomic fission. He insisted that a hydrogen bomb could be made into a practical weapon within a reasonable time. On January 30, 1950, President Truman had announced that the AEC was proceeding with research and development on all types of atomic weapons, "including the so-called hydrogen or super-bomb." Since that time, progress had exceeded even Dr. Teller's expectations. The first successful test of a hydrogen bomb had occurred on Eniwetok the prior November 2, and presently, research was being conducted into the adaptation of thermonuclear reaction to various kinds of weapons. A conservative estimate indicated that the hydrogen bomb would be in supply for military use within three years.
The AEC would not disclose where Dr. Teller's research was being conducted on the hydrogen bomb. Recently, however, a national magazine had reported that he was head of a research project at Livermore, California, comparable in importance to the atomic center at Los Alamos, New Mexico. Physicists at Livermore would not be far from the large radiation laboratory at the University of California in Berkeley, or the California Institute of Technology at Pasadena in Southern California.
Mr. Childs indicates that Dr. Teller's biography in Who's Who showed that he had been born in Budapest, had received his advanced education in physics in Germany and had then fled when Hitler came to power to continue his work, first, in Denmark and, later, in the U.S. His address was listed as the Institute for Nuclear Studies at the University of Chicago.
Robert C. Ruark indicates that a young man had recently been arrested on charges of rape, assault, robbery and violation of the Sullivan law in New York. He had been arrested for robbery and mugging the previous October, had pleaded guilty and was out on bond pending sentence when he forced his way into the house of the woman and raped and robbed her at gunpoint.
Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson had said that there was a discrepancy between crime and punishment, that the lack of confidence in the criminal laws was widespread and shared by responsible elements of society.
Mr. Ruark finds that respect for the law was founded on fear and not on sweetness and light, "that if perhaps someone had worked over that murderous young rapist in the tenderness of his youth, he might possibly have been less eager to rob and rape." No damage could possibly have been done to him had a police officer "walloped him vigorously with the butt end of a nightstick." In earlier days, policemen had walked the same beat for years on end, knew everyone in the neighborhood and put the fear of God into the "thugs" from time to time, knew the bars, pool halls and stores, and could smell trouble readily. "He cracked a head here, and delivered a baby there, and chased some hoodlums out of the candy store."
He indicates a belief that a cop had to be tough and brutal, "because his business is the control and collection of brutes—rats, punks, thieves, murderers, rioters, hoodlums." He finds that one of the best cops New York ever had had been Johnny Broderick, who had never been afraid of any thug and never bothered to carry a gun. When there was trouble, he discouraged it by hitting it on the chin, and the trouble subsided. Such was a powerful force operating in a neighborhood, especially for the young. No one liked to be clobbered.
He indicates that his sympathy was never with the criminal, especially the "young punk who fights and robs and kills and rapes for a peculiar kind of fun." Anything which happened to him was too good for him and it was rare that one could love a thug into reform. He finds that the best remedy was to scare the person into good conduct. He had observed that very few law-abiding people had trouble with cops and that nothing was too bad to happen to the lawbreakers, "the muggers and knife flashers and gang fighters". He is not sure that society needed police to be kind and gentle in their treatment of criminals, as the criminal did not appreciate it, and the cops would be nice to the nice folks of their own accord.
Somewhere in the 15 years or so since Mr. Ruark had left behind his good UNC education within the Sociology Department, he had obviously become hardened, perhaps by New York life or Navy life during World War II, or otherwise, but he had lost most or all of his sense of spirit for the underdog in society, those who never got to go to UNC or its equivalent, who never got to see why it is that the mugging and the raping and the robbing and the gunplay and such are not just offenses against the victim and against society, in violation of the social contract we all form with all others, involuntarily, at birth and by continued existence every day we elect to awaken and proceed, but also an offense against one's own dignity and sanctity and spirit when committed, by repudiation of one's part thereby in the social contract. Trying to beat or bop that into someone's head would only be, at best, a temporary, superficial remedy, a cloak ready to fall away at the first opportunity, as soon as the bopper was not around to invoke the informal sanction, indeed, would likely only act as an invitation to responsive violence, vicariously realized in displacement against an unsuspecting innocent in retribution for the violence directed at the youth earlier for relatively minor transgression. Violence only begets violence, when Pavlov
A letter writer from Los Angeles, president of the Fly the Flag Club, indicates that if every American were denied the privilege of flying or displaying the U.S. flag, they would react in the same manner, railing to the high heavens to be able to do so. He indicates that it was a shame that so few in the country exercised the privilege of flying the flag on Memorial Day, Flag Day, Independence Day, and Armistice Day. Soldiers at times risked their lives through thundering cannon in Korea to fly the flag. He urges therefore hoisting one in the quiet surroundings of one's home, to back the soldiers in their struggle for the country's continued freedom.
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