The Charlotte News

Wednesday, November 24, 1954

TWO EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from London that Communist Chinese radio had broadcast a Government communiqué this date, claiming it had caught 230 American and Nationalist Chinese agents in mainland China since 1951 and that 106 of them had been killed. It did not indicate how many Americans were included in the total or whether any Americans had been killed. It said the agents had been dropped by plane into China by the CIA and the Free China movement, the latter being claimed as "a subordinate of the CIA" and the Nationalist Chinese.

The President said this date, through White House press secretary James Hagerty, that everything "humanly possible within peaceful means" was being done to obtain the release of 13 Americans sentenced to prison as spies by the Chinese Communists. After talking with the President, Mr. Hagerty had conveyed the sentiments to the mother of one of the prisoners, an Air Force major who had been captured as part of a B-29 crew when their plane was shot down during the Korean War. She had been trying to reach the President directly, but the President was in a National Security Council meeting when Mr. Hagerty informed him of the matter.

In Qiutandinha, Brazil, Argentina and Cuba agreed with other countries attending the Inter-American Economic Conference this date that the U.S. should provide greater aid to Latin American economies. Argentina's commerce minister said that his Government supported a proposal by Chile for establishment of an Inter-American bank, to which the U.S. was opposed because it believed the U.S. would be asked to assume the largest part of the financing. Cuba's treasury secretary urged American officials not to forget that Latin American nations were the best friends of the U.S. and urged the U.S. to withdraw support from "artificial or anti-economic industries", particularly subsidization of beet sugar, which was a serious competitor to Cuban cane sugar.

Senator Milton Young of North Dakota announced this date that he would vote against censure of Senator McCarthy, saying he had been influenced by the need for preservation of the right of free speech and by the Senator's "effective work" in "exposing the Communist influence in the Federal Government and other institutions." He said, however, that the criticism by Senator McCarthy of the six-Senator select committee chaired by Senator Arthur Watkins of Utah, which had unanimously recommended censure, had been "unwarranted and unreasonable", and that "in no sense … could the committee be rightly termed 'handmaidens of the Communist Party'", as Senator McCarthy had suggested. Regarding the charge against Senator McCarthy that he had abused Brig. General Ralph Zwicker during hearings before the Senator's Investigations subcommittee the prior February, he said that he was not terribly concerned about that matter because General Zwicker had been "an arrogant, evasive witness", provoking harsh words. Senator McCarthy had said that he expected to receive about 25 votes in his favor, but had not listed who the the Senators would be. Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois, a supporter of Senator McCarthy on the censure resolution, said that he anticipated debate on censure would resume the following Monday as scheduled, following an 11-day hiatus to permit Senator McCarthy's ailing elbow to recover after his hand had been shaken against a glass table too hard by a supporter. Senator McCarthy's condition was reportedly improving. Senator Dirksen, in an interview, said that he planned to offer a substitute resolution, but had not disclosed its terms. Senate Majority Leader William Knowland said also that he anticipated that the debate would resume the following Monday. Senator Francis Case of South Dakota, a member of the select committee on censure, and who had announced that he had changed his position and would now vote against censure, denied a report published the prior Monday by Drew Pearson that he had done so out of fear that Governor-elect Joe Foss might oppose him for re-election in 1956.

In Lewisburg, Pa., William Remington, a former Government aide who had been convicted of perjury in early 1953 and was serving a three-year sentence for denying that he had given anyone secret classified information, died this date from injuries inflicted by another person, as yet unidentified, who had hit him in the head with a sock-covered brick the prior Monday morning inside the prison. He had undergone surgery the previous afternoon. He was housed in the same prison as Alger Hiss, who was set to be released the following Saturday. The acting warden of the prison said that it was fairly well determined who had killed Mr. Remington, but did not say whether it was another convict and provided no purported reason for the attack. Mr. Remington had first been indicted in 1950 on a charge of perjury before a grand jury for denying that he had ever been a member of the Communist Party, and had been convicted on that charge in early 1951 and sentenced to five years in prison, but had appealed the conviction and was freed on appellate bond, after which the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York had reversed the conviction, concluding unanimously that the District Court judge had erred in his charge to the jury. He was subsequently indicted in October, 1951 on a charge of perjury during that trial, for denying that he had ever passed Government secret documents to Elizabeth Bentley, the confessed courier for a World War II Soviet spy ring. A long process of contesting the indictment ensued, through to the Supreme Court, in which Mr. Remington contended, among other things, that the foreman of the grand jury which had issued the indictment had been a financial and literary collaborator with Ms. Bentley on a book which depended for its success on the indictment of Mr. Remington. After his challenges were denied in the courts, he went to trial and was convicted in January, 1953, that conviction having been upheld on appeal the following November. The prosecution had portrayed him in his second trial as "a gullible boy" who was fast-talked into turning secret data over to the Communist spy ring. The U.S. Attorney had called him a "psychopathic liar, a philosophical Communist". His defense had been that he had mistakenly but innocently used his position on the War Production Board to obtain Government data for Ms. Bentley.

The Government reported this date that the cost of living had declined in October for the third straight month, this time by two-tenths of a percent since September, resulting in an hourly wage decrease of one cent for 1.3 million workers in the auto, aircraft and farm machinery industries, whose union contracts were tied to escalator causes. Reduced food prices were listed as the primary factor in the reduction.

In Owosso, Mich., the mother of Governor Thomas Dewey of New York was found dead in bed at her home this date at age 77, the coroner stating that there was no doubt that her death was the result of a heart attack.

In Raleigh, State Attorney General Harry McMullan, in a digest of opinions released this date, said, among other things, that it was illegal to follow a fire truck answering a fire alarm closer than one block, that it was illegal for the driver of a vehicle other than one on official business to park within a block of where fire apparatus had stopped in answer to a fire alarm, and that when a police or fire department vehicle provided an audible signal, drivers of other vehicles had to pull to the right side of the road and wait until the police or fire department vehicle had passed. Another opinion said that a parent, who took legal title to an automobile when in fact the car was being purchased for a minor child, was the owner of the vehicle within the meaning of the financial responsibility law. Another opinion stated that when an official paper or instrument was required by law to be registered and had no subscribing witness, execution of it could be shown by proof of the handwriting of the maker of the instrument.

Emery Wister of The News tells of Miss America, Lee Meriwether, subsequently to become known as a television actress, being in Charlotte for the Carolinas Carrousel celebration, to begin this night and continue through the following day on Thanksgiving. She would drive to Greensboro on Friday and then return to Charlotte on Saturday to catch a plane to Evansville, Ind. She said that most of her time since being crowned Miss America in September had been spent traveling everywhere across the country and to South America, that she might even go to Europe but did not know yet. She said that there was lots of fog in San Francisco where she lived, but that when she dropped in for a visit a few weeks earlier, there was not any around, that it was as clear as crystal. She also said that there was no smog, reserved for Los Angeles, where she had been born but from which she left at an early age. She had won a $5,000 scholarship, a new car and a new wardrobe for being crowned Miss America, and planned to continue her studies as a sophomore at City College of San Francisco the following fall, and then wanted to be an actress, planning to enroll at Pasadena Playhouse after graduation from college. Soon, she would star in an episode of "Philco Playhouse" on television. A photograph of Ms. Meriwether appears on the page.

As part of the Carrousel activities, a Queen of Carrousel IX would be chosen from 34 contestants the following night, during the third annual Coronation Ball of the Royal Society, Knights of Carrousel, with medieval splendor being the keynote of the ball and special events including the crowning of the King of Carrousel, an outstanding citizen to be named this night by the previous year's King, George Ivey, Sr., the department store scion. The Queen of Carrousel for the previous year, Mrs. Douglas Carrowon of Bennettsville, S.C., would reign over the two-day festivities with the new King.

Where's Elvis?

On the editorial page, "An Opportunity To Give Charlotte Better Bus Transportation Service" indicates that bound up in the application for a transfer of franchise filed with the City Council the previous day by City Coach Lines, Inc., was a promise of improved bus service for Charlotte and its fringe areas. The company had purchased Duke Power Co.'s transportation system, had a record of efficient operation and good public relations in other communities, and there was reason to believe it could give Charlotte residents better service than they had been receiving from the system of Duke, in operation for half a century. It proceeds to explain its position at great length, finds that it was an opportunity to get the city's bus system into the hands of a transportation specialist, a firm anxious to make an efficient, convenient operation, while to Duke, it had been merely a white elephant, an unwanted sideline.

It concludes that it believed CCL could make a success of the bus line while at the same time providing Charlotte the transportation system it needed.

"Devious Methods Aren't Desirable" indicates that the postponement for a couple of months of the oral arguments, previously set for December 6, by the Supreme Court in the implementing decision in Brown v. Board of Education would likely not work to the advantage of either side in the matter. The postponement had occurred because there was a vacancy remaining on the Court in the wake of the death of Justice Robert Jackson in October, Justice-designate John Harlan still not having been confirmed, with further determination of the confirmation having been delayed until the start of the new Congress because Senator James Eastland of Mississippi wanted more time to study the nomination.

It suggests that it was apparent that the Court believed that the transition to integrated public schools ought occur gradually. It finds it appropriate to inquire into Senator Eastland's decision to delay the confirmation process until January. Senator William Langer of North Dakota had acted likewise at the time of Chief Justice Earl Warren's nomination during the Congressional recess in 1953, during which time Senator Langer had publicized unfounded complaints against Governor Warren arising from his tenure as Governor of California, which had been filed with the Judiciary Committee. It finds complaints which had been filed against Judge Harlan to be in the same "crackpot" category, one complaint being that he had been a Rhodes scholar, another, that he was a member of the advisory board of the Atlantic Union Committee, and another that his law firm had once represented a telephone company.

It indicates that such complaints did not merit consideration by the Senate, and it hopes that Senator Eastland was not seeking the delay in an effort to delay implementation of the Brown decision, with which he and many other Southerners disagreed. It finds that while the South had good reason for receiving time to change its traditional pattern of school segregation, the issue ought be met "fairly and squarely".

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch tells of author Somerset Maugham turning 80, saying that he had written his last book and proposed "to begin living", having stated in The Summing Up 16 years earlier that his design had been to make writing "an essential element" in his life, which "would include all the other activities proper to man," but looked forward to old age without dismay, for the young man turned away, as he believed that when he reached old age, he would still yearn for the things which gave variety and gusto to youth, but that such was a misconception. "Old age, paradoxical as it may sound, has more time. When I was young I was amazed at Plutarch's statement that the elder Cato began at the age of 80 to learn Greek. I am amazed no longer. Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long."

The piece indicates that Mr. Maugham was ready to begin the kind of living which took time, time to prepare for it and to perform it, that 80 was an age for projects which a younger man was rushed or intimidated from undertaking, and wishes Mr. Maugham and all of his generation who were ready for the long tasks much joy in those projects.

Drew Pearson indicates that when the President had gone out of his way to refer to Congressman Sam Rayburn, shortly to become again Speaker, as "Mr. Sam" during the recent conference at the White House with Congressional leaders of both parties, it may have been that he had heard of Mr. Rayburn's irate feelings, which he had not sought to conceal. He had meant it when he said that House Democrats would support the President completely on foreign policy and national defense, but had also meant it when he said to friends that he was going to show up the falsity of the "McNixon" charges against the Democrats as the "party of treason". Mr. Rayburn had served for 40 years in the House and was just as proud of that record as General Eisenhower had been of his 40 years in the Army. He had begun as a young Congressman during the term of President Woodrow Wilson, had lived through two world wars, which Vice-President Nixon implied the Democrats had taken the nation into to maintain prosperity, implications which Mr. Rayburn greatly resented as he had helped to make that history and was aware of the facts behind it, believed that he was certainly more aware of it than a "Johnny-come-lately" Vice-President "whose war service consisted largely of renegotiating Naval contracts in the Pentagon and then borrowing money from one of the contractors with whom he was negotiating." Mr. Rayburn was therefore determined to show that the Communists had first penetrated the country under President Hoover, and he had previous Congressional investigations to prove it, as well as the fact that President Hoover had completely ignored Congressional warnings of Communist spies. He also proposed to get at the truth within the Civil Service Commission regarding the claimed purge of security risks in the Government under the Republicans. He expected to prove that about half of those claimed security risks which the Republicans had supposedly fired had actually been hired by the Republicans.

Some Democrats suggested that if the President really wanted Democratic cooperation for bipartisan foreign policy, he would do to the Vice-President what he had done to General George Patton when the latter had been made to stand before 10,000 troops and apologize for slapping a sick soldier during the campaign in Sicily in 1943. But the Democrats did not expect an apology from either the President or "McNixon" and so intended to proceed with their investigations.

Democratic Senator James Murray of Montana, just re-elected, told a meeting of the Americans for Democratic Action how a pamphlet which had smeared him as a Communist had almost led to his defeat, while dealing primarily in factual language, which then proceeded to suggest that he was aiding the Communist cause. To counter this smear, the Senator had run advertising showing an autographed picture of the President, bearing the inscription: "To Jim Murray, A Great American—Dwight D. Eisenhower." Congressman Wesley D'Ewart, his opponent in the midterm race, complained to the President that by sending out that picture, he was defeating a member of his own party, to which the President had replied that he had not given the picture to Senator Murray for political purposes and that it was unethical of him to use it in that manner, the Congressman then reprinting the President's reply in all of the local newspapers. Senator Murray was upset about that and told the ADA meeting that he would present the picture from the President to the clerk of the Senate, with instructions that it be returned to the President, as he did not want a picture with an inscription which was good "only in odd-numbered years".

Robert Browne was a former security risk who was now no longer considered such, and he was willing to discuss it. He had been fired from his job as an exhibit worker for the Smithsonian Institution, though he had been hired by Republicans and fired by Republicans, but was nevertheless listed among the controversial "security risks". He had started to work at the Smithsonian in January, 1954, and four months later, his appointment was made permanent, pending a trial period of a year, usually indicative of the employee's past having been thoroughly investigated. But in early July, Mr. Browne realized that he was still being investigated, forced to answer a series a questions concerning his Socialist background, which he had admitted when he applied for the job. He submitted answers in August which said he was not presently or ever had been a member of the Communist Party, that he would not choose to go to jail rather than be drafted into military service, and that he would never be unwilling to defend the country in time of war. He stated that he was, presently and previously, a member of the Libertarian Socialist League. He then received a notice of dismissal in September, not mentioning anything about being a security risk, but indicating that he was being fired because he failed to note on his application that he had once been fined $2.50 for disorderly conduct in late 1947, and that for a period of two years, he received his Socialist mail under another name. Mr. Pearson concludes that he was one of 6,926 such claimed "security risks" in the "numbers game" being played by the Republican Administration, to try to show that there had been many such risks in the Government during the Democratic Administrations. He concludes that if the reader could guess how many other persons there were just like Mr. Browne, the Democrats said that the person deserved a free ride on the Washington Merry-Go-Round—which was the name of Mr. Pearson's column.

Doris Fleeson tells of a growing group of well-financed right-wing forces trying to capture the President's supporters and set up rival command posts in Congress, their aim being to make it impossible for him to succeed in his next foreign policy objective, to obtain some kind of negotiated peace. Their weapon was propaganda, through which they hoped to confuse the issue, making the term "negotiated peace" appear dirty, thereby scaring the President out of his presently contemplated actions.

The newest such group was called "Ten Million Americans Mobilizing for Justice", formed out of "For America", the nationalist organization created by Col. Robert McCormick of the Chicago Tribune, and the "Committee for Constitutional Government", which had been a principal supporter of the Bricker amendment to amend the constitutional provisions regarding the treaty-making power of the President, to make it weaker, subject to greater Congressional ratification by both houses, not just the Senate. Col. McCormick was an old isolationist America Firster from the early days of World War II.

Because of the popularity of the President, such groups did not directly attack him and were too small to have any luck with direct political action. In the midterm elections of 1954, their principal targets had been former Congressman Clifford Case, who ran successfully for the Senate from New Jersey as a Republican, incumbent Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois, who easily won over his opponent, and providing support for three Congressmen who had been supporters of Senator McCarthy, Charles Kersten, Kit Clardy and Fred Busbey, each of whom was beaten in the elections. Thus, the hopes of those groups rested on securing veto power against actions and people they did not like, utilizing the tactic of branding them pro-Communist and anti-American. At present, they were seeking to rescue Senator McCarthy from his censure by seeking to redirect the charges into a question of Communist infiltration of the Government.

Ms. Fleeson indicates that they were too late in that latter effort as the censure committee had gotten ahead of them by making the vote on censure a test of whether the Senate intended to stand by the committee it had appointed to do the dirty work of investigating the censure charges and making recommendations to the full Senate, and Senator McCarthy could not seem to hold himself in check.

But, she imparts, Senator McCarthy was expendable in the real war being waged by these groups, seeking to encircle the President. The Bricker amendment was essential to that strategy, to restrict the President in the exercise of his power over foreign policy, and that effort would soon recur.

Robert C. Ruark indicates that his grandfather had built a house on the sands of Southport, N.C., some 75 years earlier, which had taken the full force of Hurricane Hazel, which had hit eastern North Carolina in mid-October. He had just received pictures of what the hurricane had done to some of the houses in the town, but his grandfather's house still stood on its stilts.

Southport had seen its share of major storms, and he could remember as a boy when the river ran a block into town and some roofs skidded along like scrap paper, and yet the largest of them never knocked down the old, tough houses.

He noticed that one large beach development had lost all of its houses, which were new, constructed since the war, except for a few. But in the pictures he had received, the older houses had remained firmly set, all built on stilts. He says that the older houses had been built primarily of Carolina fat pine, which would flare like tinder at first, but if it survived 50 years, turned into a kind of iron or petrified wood.

He had bought his grandfather's house some years earlier and found the electrical wiring a mess, wondering why it had not burned down, but also finding that the wood was so hard that the remodelers had difficulty pounding nails into it. It had no sprung beams or sagging joists. He concludes that they must have built them differently in the earlier days, with honest labor and seasoned materials, a pride in craftsmanship eluding the modern builders, the workmanship of whom he finds shoddy, as demonstrated by the results of the hurricane. "Grandpa may have builded his house upon the sands, but Grandpa's sands seem to be a sight better than modern man's rock."

A letter writer, in the senior high department of Christ Episcopal Church, says that they were protesting the Carrousel parade on Thanksgiving Day as detracting from the real meaning of Thanksgiving, that it was a commercialization of a day which should be spent in thanksgiving to God and in the company of family, urges finding another day for the parade.

Write Macy's in New York.

A letter from Bob Cherry, Jr., indicates that one of the newspaper's recent, "somewhat twisted" editorial blasts at Senator McCarthy had concluded with "this bit of impassioned vaudeville": "Surely even his defenders ought to see clearly by now the design of the man who consistently infers that disagreement with him amounts to disloyalty." He says that as a defender of Senator McCarthy, he could not follow the reasoning of the newspaper, says that he had no confidence in its knowledge or ability to express sound opinions on the subjects with which Senator McCarthy's work was intimately connected, security, subversion, loyalty and disloyalty. He says he lacked that confidence because the newspaper had defended, either directly or indirectly, such persons as Owen Lattimore, William Remington, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer and Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam, "whose cavortings, however innocently indulged in in some cases, with Reds and fellow travelers are rather well known." He inquires whether the answer to the newspaper's thinking lay in the basic fact that they were "'liberal'" and therefore were unable to follow an editorial course which did not veer to the left, and that if so, he says phooey on "the sophistry of liberalism". He finds the attitude "repulsive".

A letter writer indicates that a picture in the newspaper had shown actress Rhonda Fleming toasting the husband she would soon divorce, with the caption indicating in part that she had quietly established Swiss residence six months earlier, well before the depicted "cozy scene of she and her husband". He says that he was disillusioned and suggests, " let's you and me drink a cozy toast to she and her husband."

The editors respond: "And then a toast to we!"

Because we hear quite often these days the inappropriate usage of "she" or "he" as an object, instead of the proper "her" or "him", we feel compelled, unfortunately, to underscore the jest involved in the writer's usage and in the response by the editors, so that the casual reader will not say: "What's that all about? If you don't know, does her?"

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