The Charlotte News

Wednesday, April 28, 1954

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that in the fifth day of hearings on the dispute between the Army and Senator McCarthy, the Senator exploded with violent protests against questions regarding whether Private G. David Schine had hired fellow soldiers to clean his rifle and had told his commander that he was in the Army to modernize and streamline it. The questions had been posed to Secretary of the Army Robert Stevens by the Senate Investigations subcommittee special counsel Ray Jenkins, and Secretary Stevens had responded with some laughter that he had heard of it, prompting loud laughter among spectators in the hearing room. Senator McCarthy then interjected that the questions by Mr. Jenkins were "completely unfair" to Private Schine, that they might create the impression that the questions represented facts, and that they constituted a "smear". He contended that if charges were to be made against the Private, the latter should be made a party to the investigation so that he could have counsel present and cross-examine witnesses. The Senator also said that alleged favors for the Private had been investigated by the Inspector General of the Army and he demanded that the report of same be placed in evidence. Senator Karl Mundt, temporary chairman of the subcommittee during the investigation, ruled that the questions were proper and that Private Schine would be called as a witness in due course. The testimony of Secretary Stevens would continue through the afternoon session.

A transcript of a brief colloquy the previous day between the usual chief counsel of the Investigations subcommittee, Roy Cohn, and the Army's chief counsel, Joseph Welch, is included on the front page, in which Mr. Welch questioned Mr. Cohn regarding the uncropped photograph which Mr. Welch had introduced into evidence the previous day, after a cropped version, showing only Private Schine and Secretary Stevens, had first been introduced by Mr. Jenkins, the uncropped version showing one other person, an Army colonel, and the arm of a fourth person. Mr. Welch asked Mr. Cohn whether Mr. Stevens had a "grim smile" in the photograph, to which Mr. Cohn responded that Mr. Stevens and Mr. Schine were looking at each other. Mr. Welch asked whether Mr. Stevens could just as easily have been looking at the colonel, to which Mr. Cohn responded that Mr. Stevens was looking to his right and Private Schine was looking toward Mr. Stevens. Mr. Welch said that he noticed a slight look of pleasure on the colonel's face, and Mr. Cohn suggested that it was because he might be anticipating a steak dinner they had shortly after the photograph was taken, to which Mr. Welch added that if the colonel was looking forward to a steak dinner, then Private Schine had to be "considering a whole haunch of beef" based on his grin. Mr. Cohn then responded that Mr. Stevens, given the grimness of his face, might have been considering the fact that Senator McCarthy had told him that the hearings showing what was going on in terms of Communist infiltration of the Army would start the following Tuesday after the photograph was taken. No one, incidentally, suggested that anyone in the picture had a "lean and hungry look", which would have dovetailed with the coda to the March 9 broadcast of Edward R. Murrow anent Senator McCarthy. Of course, that could have only properly fit Mr. Cohn and he was not in the picture. Senator McCarthy was not lean.

In Geneva, Russia proposed this date, through Foreign Minister V. M. Molotov, an immediate meeting of representatives of the French Union forces and the Vietminh in Indo-China to discuss evacuation of wounded from the French fortress at Dien Bien Phu, and also suggested that leaders of the Vietminh be invited to participate in the Geneva debate on peace in Indo-China, along with representatives of the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, Communist China and the three Indochinese Associated States, Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia. With the exception of the Vietminh, the French had proposed the same list. French Foreign Minister Georges Bidault had proposed that the determination of the evacuation of the wounded from the fortress be first decided before determining the participating nations in the talks. Currently, the wounded were being treated in dugout shelters within the fortress as Vietminh guns were blocking French planes from landing to evacuate the wounded. Foreign Minister Chou En-lai of Communist China also demanded this date that all foreign military bases in Asia be abolished and that all foreign troops be withdrawn.

From Hanoi it was reported that the Vietminh had confined their assaults on battered Dien Bien Phu to artillery barrages again this date, amid mounting indications that the rebels might hold off further frontal assaults in the hope of starving out the weary French defenders. Rains from the spring monsoon had turned the fortress into a sea of red mud, bogging down all mechanized movement. A radio broadcast of the enemy indicated that the Vietminh were prepared to await the flooding of the trenches, forcing the French to surrender. The defenders continued to slug it out, nevertheless, against the artillery fire of the Vietminh. The French continued to reinforce the fortress defenses by parachute drop, with more men and supplies having been parachuted despite the rain. The French high command indicated that there had been no important infantry fighting the previous night or early this date, with enemy barrages hitting the headquarters, heart of the fortress, while the French artillery and antiaircraft batteries hit the enemy strongholds within the low-lying hills two to four miles distant.

Vice-President Nixon said this date, before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, that "the major aim of this Administration's policy" was to avoid committing U.S. troops in Indo-China or elsewhere, if possible, but that the Administration would not resort to "a policy of weakness or inconsistency" to achieve that aim. He received applause from the 3,000 delegates for the statement. He said that world peace was being threatened by "the international Communist conspiracy", the nation's primary problem, and that unless it were solved, the country might not be around to enjoy the solution of its other problems.

Representative Frederic Coudert of New York proposed this date to deny the President authority to send U.S. troops to Indo-China without prior approval of Congress, telling newsmen that he had discussed the proposal with a number of his colleagues and had found no one opposed to it, but that there was no telling how they would vote after having pressure applied to them. The proposal was made in the form of an amendment to the appropriations bill for the defense budget of 28.6 billion dollars, debate on which would begin this date. The proposal applied only to sending troops to countries which had no mutual defense pacts with the U.S.

The Senate Banking Committee summoned the suspended FHA general counsel, the resigned associate counsel, and the retired FHA deputy commissioner to testify before it regarding the multimillion-dollar scandal in the FHA's loan insurance programs. Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia, head of the joint Committee on Reduction of Nonessential Federal Expenditures, demanded that the Justice Department begin immediate legal proceedings against a fourth ousted FHA official, the former assistant commissioner for rental housing, who, according to Senator Byrd, was "the key official" involved in over-valuations of properties resulting in windfalls to apartment builders of 100 million dollars or more. The official had reported gambling losses of up to $5,000 in a single night, the gambling having first attracted the attention of the FBI, leading to the investigation of the FHA. The official had invoked the Fifth Amendment the previous week and refused to answer questions by the Banking Committee.

The President this date nominated a West Point classmate, retired Lt. General Joseph Swing of San Francisco, to be the commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, succeeding Argyle Mackey, who would step down to become the deputy commissioner. Attorney General Herbert Brownell, who supervised the I.N.S., part of the Justice Department, had asked Mr. Mackey to remain as deputy. Mr. Mackey had submitted his resignation when the President took office.

In Washington, Comptroller General Lindsay Warren, who was set to retire two days hence, had returned to the job after spending two weeks in Bethesda Naval Hospital where he was being treated after doctors told him he had to quit work. He had served 13 1/2 years of his 15-year term and would retire on his full salary of $17,500 per year. A native of North Carolina, he and his wife would return to Washington, N.C., to re-establish their residence after 30 years in the nation's capital. Mr. Warren had been a Congressman before FDR had named him Comptroller.

In Chicago, two gunmen the previous day were handed five cash boxes by a cashier at an office, but demanded a sixth, the biggest of the boxes, and when the cashier obliged, it set off a burglar alarm, causing the thieves to drop all except one of the boxes, including the heaviest one which had contained ten pounds of nails. Four of the boxes had contained $570.

In Syracuse, N.Y., a law student at Syracuse University had been charged with running a stop sign, and argued the case in Traffic Court, prompting the judge to dismiss it. His defense is not provided. Probably was that because he was running late for torts class, he could not afford to be a tortoise, and, in any event, did not do it on porpoise—but had there been an accident and the other driver sued for damages, he would have been liable, res ipsa, negligence per se, as long as the other driver was not speeding or otherwise also breaking a traffic law, in which case one would have to know whether New York was a comparative negligence jurisdiction as opposed to contributory, in the latter case, negating the liability of both for either, at least, assuming there were no issues regarding actual causation or supervening causation.

In Corning, N.Y., a confusing number of alarms rang at the fire station, eventually proving to be a false alarm.

Betty Boyer, in her weekly "Grocery News" column, tells how to lighten your ironing burdens with a grand starch, suggests "a real moth proofer in bomb style", and tells of "Flavor-Control" providing pure coffee at real savings. You will find it on page 00, surely unique numeration to this particular issue, for unknown reasons, which must be fathomed and explored to the depths to prevent a whole generation coming of age questioning why. By the way, you will see tomorrow that Ms. Boyer, in her butterscotch-date cream pie recipe, was clairvoyant, albeit regarding a not yet publicized past event, which is some sort of post hoc, ergo praedicendi hoc form of clairvoyance, we trow, and sans dates.

On the editorial page, "Needed: A New Look at Teaching" indicates that there were not enough teachers in the state, particularly for elementary schools, and that there would not be enough for some time to come, as the shortage would only become more acute. There were enough black teachers, as education was one of the few respectable and relatively high-paying vocations open to blacks in the state. The supply of white elementary school teachers, however, was decreasing, as 1,537 additional such teachers had been needed in the 1952-53 school year and the state's institutions of higher learning had provided only 704. During the current school year, 1,707 such teachers were needed but in-state institutions had produced only 663. The result was large, unwieldy classes. North Carolina ranked 46th among the states in students per teacher, resulting in lower quality instruction, as North Carolina teachers could only devote half as much time to each pupil as in North Dakota, with half as many students per teacher, 14.