The Charlotte News
Monday, November 24, 1952
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Robert B. Tuckman, that B-26 Marauder bombers the previous night had destroyed 200 enemy vehicles in the largest truck-busting raid of the year. The nine-day total reached 1,175 trucks destroyed, in a campaign designed to stanch the flow of supplies for front line enemy troops. Twelve B-29's dropped 120 tons of high explosives on an enemy communications center at Sinanju, 40 miles north of Pyongyang. U.S. Sabre jets shot down one enemy MIG-15, bringing the total for the week to 17 MIGs destroyed, two probably destroyed and four damaged.
In ground action, the enemy on Sunday had engaged in a series of harassing attacks all along the front, feeling out the allied defenses, but none of the jabs being aimed at actually capturing U.N. positions. The largest probe was launched against "Sniper Ridge" on the central front, broken up by allied rockets and artillery.
Three Marines, Lt. Col. Raymond G. Davis, Tech. Sgt. (Ret.) Robert S. Kennemore, and Pfc. (Ret.) Hector A. Cafferata, were decorated with the Medal of Honor by the President for extraordinary valor in the First Marine Division's breakthrough of a Communist trap in North Korea during the early winter of 1950.
In Berlin, 200 orphaned children from Communist North Korea arrived the previous week to reside permanently in East Germany, and 200 more, according to officials, were expected shortly. Two homes were being built for them by the Communist Government.
At the U.N. in New York, the most serious diplomatic rift between Britain and the U.S. in years had developed after the U.S. had notified British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden that it could not accept the British-backed Indian compromise plan for ending the prisoner of war deadlock in the Koean truce talks, unless the proposals originally put forward by the U.S. were first given a chance before the U.N. in their current form. India quickly came up with modifications, but those apparently were not satisfactory to the U.S. Moscow newspapers were exploiting the rift, and predicted a major split between the U.S. and the Western Allies, possibly leading to war. The Soviet press was not in favor of the Indian plan.
President-elect Eisenhower visited the U.N. this date and conferred privately with U.N. officials, presumably regarding the proposals to end the war in Korea. He went to the private office of Secretary-General Trygve Lie and stayed about 20 minutes, with president of the General Assembly, Lester Pearson of Canada, also present. The President-elect remained about an hour and indicated afterward that it was inspiring to have been present at the U.N. He was applauded by persons present as he walked through the various rooms. During the afternoon, he would confer separately with two persons mentioned for Cabinet posts, Ezra Taft Benson of Salt Lake City, reportedly the choice for Secretary of Agriculture, and John Minor Wisdom of New Orleans, considered a possibility for other vacancies. Paul Hoffman, who had a prominent role in the campaign, according to the President-elect's press secretary James Hagerty, had stated that he would not accept any Government position.
In Kenya, officials announced the arrest of 350 persons at Kirawara, after police had opened fire on a mob of 2,000 Kikuyu tribesmen, killing 15 the previous day. It was the bloodiest weekend in the British colony since the beginning of the drive to eliminate the terrorist activity of the anti-white Mau Mau Society. The death toll was at least 20, including a retired commander in the British Navy. On Saturday night, five Africans armed with long knives had burst into the farm home of the commander and his physician wife, stabbing both of them, the wife, however, having escaped by car and listed in serious condition.
In Baghdad, a tough new Government headed by military officials dissolved all political parties, closed 12 newspapers and prohibited demonstrations in the wake of weekend rioting in which at least 11 persons were believed to have been killed and 58 wounded. Mobs had looted and set fire to the office of the U.S. Information Service the previous day, stoned the British Embassy and attacked two police stations. Army troops were mobilized to restore order the previous night after rioters had driven police from the streets. Armored cars and machine-gun carriers patrolled the streets this date. Martial law was declared by the Army chief of staff, who deployed the troops, then formed a new Cabinet, taking the posts of Prime Minister, Defense Minister, and Acting Minister of Interior, while dispensing all other Cabinet positions to civilian non-party men, four of whom were newcomers to the Government.
The joint Congressional Committee on Defense Production stated in a report this date that price trends of the previous 2 1/2 years showed that Governmental action in controlling prices for the previous 18 months had a major role in halting rampant inflation, but cited evidence which showed that inflation was still a serious problem. The report had been completed October 22, before the election, but was held up because some members said that they could not study it adequately during the campaign. The report provided a rosy picture of the economy.
In Alaska, a C-124 Globemaster transport plane, with 52 men aboard, had vanished Saturday night over the Gulf of Alaska. Only a weak radio signal was being detected, picked up the previous day. Twenty-four search planes were ready to comb the area when weather cleared. Since November 7, six military planes had either crashed or disappeared, carrying a total of 162 men, of whom 82 were known dead and 72 remained missing, with eight having survived. Three of the lost troop carriers were in Alaska, two were in Korea, and one was in Montana.
Near Florida City, Fla., the skeleton of a man who had been dead for five to six months was discovered the previous day hanging from a pine tree branch four miles east of the town. He was tentatively identified from a draft card as a 49-year old man from Indiana. A farmer had discovered the skeleton in a tree bordering his field.
Alger Hiss was denied parole this date by the U.S. Parole Board by unanimous vote of its five members. The Board indicated that it had received more than 50,000 letters and telegrams expressing views in favor of and against granting him parole. Mr. Hiss had become eligible by virtue of having completed a third of his five-year sentence after his conviction in 1950 for perjury in connection with the allegations made against him by Whittaker Chambers that in 1938, he had supplied Mr. Chambers with numerous State Department secret documents to be handed over to the Russians.
The Government suspended wholesale price ceilings on pork products, as the Office of Price Stabilization met with meat industry representatives to determine whether retail ceilings on beef could be rolled back.
Newspaper advertising in 52 cities during October had increased by 7.1 percent over the corresponding month in 1951, according to media records.
Near Ashland, Va., five Marines, apparently returning to their bases after spending the weekend on leave, were killed early this date when their automobile collided with a tractor-trailer truck about five miles south of the town. The driver of the truck, from Charlotte, was not injured.
In Cambridge, England, Sir William Henry Clark, former British high commander to Canada and South Africa, had died the prior Saturday at age 77.
On the editorial page, "Why the Budget Won't Be Cut Much" indicates that over 60 billion dollars of the 79 billion dollar budget passed by Congress for the present year had gone to national defense, with the rest representing more or less fixed costs involving commitments to pay interest, fund veterans programs, provide for grants to states for public assistance, roads and hospitals, and farm price supports. Thus, any substantial cuts would have to come from defense expenditures. President-elect Eisenhower had not proposed major reductions in non-defense spending, indeed had suggested expansion of some domestic programs, such as Social Security and farm price supports. He wanted to cut defense spending without compromising the effectiveness of defense. That would not be easy, and, in any event, would not begin to show up in the budget for two to three years. The world situation did not permit a drastic reduction in defense and the time lag between appropriation and actual expenditure of military procurement funds meant that about 80 billion dollars of carry-over spending had already been authorized for the following fiscal year.
It thus advises that taxpayers should not expect much relief either in 1953 or 1954, as Congress had already appropriated a large share of the expenditures for those two fiscal years.
"William Green Served Labor Well" indicates that AFL president William Green, who had died at age 82 the prior Friday of a heart attack, had guided the labor organization for nearly 30 years in a level-headed manner, following a moderate course, while never being reticent about tangling with someone he regarded as an enemy to labor. His fondest hope had been to unite labor, a goal never achieved in his lifetime. He had been a foe of Communism at home and abroad, saying in 1946 that the U.S. had to be firm with Russia or be forced to fight it later. The AFL member unions had a good record of preventing Communist infiltration.
It had been coincidental that his death came within days of that of CIO president Philip Murray, both having left behind a record of service on behalf of organized labor which would stand as "a great testimony to the freedom of the society in which we live."
"The Decline of the Hitchhiker" indicates that the nature of hitchhikers had changed markedly since the depression, when many people took to the roads to save enough money to buy a can of beans. Now, most hitchhikers were young people, well-dressed collegiate types. But they did not follow the earlier rules of hitchhikers, who would argue among themselves for favored positions near intersections or stop signs, some employing fancy signs proclaiming a destination or their personal bankruptcy. Now, hitchhikers stood in small groups and were heedless of the advantage of a particular waiting spot, hanging out at no-parking zones, around curves, after stoplights, and at other places where motorists could not easily pull over to pick them up. It regards it as the fruit of progress, that hitchhiking was fast becoming a lost art.
"'Local' Affairs" indicates that some South Africans objected to the U.N.'s concern over the country's apartheid policy, claiming that it was a domestic matter. Some Frenchmen objected to the U.N.'s concern over the North African colonial problems, likewise claiming it to be a domestic matter. Some Americans objected to Western Europe's concern over U.S. tariffs, on the same basis. Some Russians objected to the free world's concern over its imposition of travel restrictions, also claiming it as a domestic matter.
It indicates that domestic matters were settled every day throughout the world, such as when a jury in Yanceyville, N.C., recently had convicted a black man of assault for leering at a young white female, and when the German Parliament had voted against consideration of ratification of the European Army at the present time.
It wonders whether anyone could properly say that domestic matters were not also the concern of persons outside the particular community in which they were settled, citing the case of the treatment of Jews by the Nazis and Germany's training of airmen and soldiers in violation of the Versailles Treaty, treated by the Nazis as local matters. It indicates that in the modern world, actions of a local nature affected others outside the community, potentially having international significance.
A piece from the Nevada (Mo.) Daily Mail, titled "From Here to Hollywood", indicates that the novel by James Jones, From Here to Eternity, had been sufficiently cleaned up as a script to permit filming by Hollywood. Swear words had been removed; scenes of brutality in the Army camp stockade had been eliminated; the character of an objectionable Army captain had been changed so as not to offend the Defense Department; and sinners in the story were made to suffer for their transgressions. It finds, in conclusion, that after all of those omissions, it was "like looking at a disconnected carburetor and being told it's an automobile."
Drew Pearson indicates that both President Truman and President-elect Eisenhower, at the time of their meeting the prior Tuesday at the White House, had been nervous in advance, but at the inception of the conference, President Truman had broken the ice by saying that he had been in politics for 40 years and that sometimes one won and sometimes one lost. He vowed to help the President-elect as much as he could, stating that after FDR had died, he had no one to brief him extensively on the Government, that he had not even known that the President was ill, and having the duties of the Presidency suddenly thrust upon him without so much as having attended a prior Cabinet meeting had been daunting. He pointed out the sign on his desk which read: "The buck stops here." He emphasized that point, that there was no one above the President to whom to pass matters. He provided the President-elect with a series of loose-leaf notebooks containing copies of all of his executive orders, reports on defense production, and charts showing exactly the amounts of production achieved in every strategic material.
After their meeting alone, the two men emerged smiling and appeared congenial, and then met with the Cabinet, at which Secretary of State Acheson did most of the talking, and the President and President-elect primarily only listened. Mr. Acheson indicated that unless President-elect Eisenhower made some reassuring statement about continuity of the present policy for Europe, the governments of France and Italy might fall, to which General Eisenhower responded, without elaborating, that he had already made one such statement. Mr. Acheson said that he was unhappy about the split between the U.S., Canada, France and Britain regarding the Indian proposal for resolving the prisoner of war dispute in Korea.
Mr. Acheson also discussed the December 15 meeting of NATO, originally scheduled to make important decisions on Army strength for the ensuing two years, and that though Britain and France wanted to proceed with the meeting, there would be no important decisions made because of the change in administrations in the U.S.
Secretary of the Treasury John W. Snyder gave a report on the finances of the Allies, warning especially of the economic predicament of France and Italy, indicating that Britain was not in such bad shape.
Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett talked primarily about Korea and defense production, the latter being the only domestic question discussed during the entire meeting.
General Eisenhower had emerged from the White House after the meetings appearing grim and irritable, but only because he was surrounded by newsmen and had expected to be given a passageway, to which he had become accustomed as a military officer. He remarked that he thought things in that regard had been outrageously handled.
Marquis Childs again discusses tariffs and the need of foreign nations to receive dollars from selling goods within the U.S. He points out that increasingly, the country was self-sufficient in even the most obscure products, able to grow virtually anything within its many different climates. In addition, the industrial capacity had been doubled during World War II and in many areas had been greatly expanded since the war. Many Americans failed to realize the harm done to other importing countries by high tariffs to protect U.S. products from competition.
He cites the example of the tariff on almonds which harmed Italian peasants, who lost their market for the only product they sold to the outside world. The tariff on tuna fish was raised from 22.5 to 45 percent, having a negligible effect on the U.S. economy but costing Japan dearly, potentially disastrous to its economy. Such were minor products to the U.S.
There was an impending increase on the tariff on wool, which would have the backing of Western Republicans in the new Congress to protect the sheep producers, while having a bad effect on Australia, where wool was the basis of the economy. The Australians had long been angry over restrictions on wool, violative of undertakings entered by the U.S. as far back as 1947, when Australia had made tariff concessions in return for reduction in the butter tariff. But since that time, no butter had been exported to the U.S. because of "agricultural regulations".
In Geneva, before the international organization known as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, Australia, Canada, The Netherlands, Denmark, and New Zealand formally charged the U.S. with violation of trade agreements by restricting imports to the U.S. of cheese and other dairy products which had been imposed by the Defense Production Act of 1951, passed in the wake of the Korean War. The Netherlands had taken retaliatory action by cutting its imports of flour by about one-third, but all five of the countries made it clear that they were opposed to retaliatory action unless forced into it, desiring instead the removal of U.S. restrictions.
He points out that while the country kept out agricultural products of other countries, it exported a large amount of major crops to foreign markets, which, if lost or substantially reduced, would prompt American farmers immediately to react with demands that the Government buy up surpluses to avoid price drops. Cotton and tobacco were among those crops, and for all the pledged support to President-elect Eisenhower by Southern Democrats regarding foreign policy, the Southerners would fight to maintain their traditional markets abroad for the region's products.
Stewart Alsop tells of President-elect Eisenhower being urged by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., and other advisers to seize the initiative regarding the Communist issue at the very outset of his administration, and form a non-partisan commission modeled on the Canadian Royal Commission which had broken the Canadian spy ring in 1946. Such a commission would have full access to facts, which it would study in secret and then issue a non-political report regarding internal subversion. Such a report would take the steam out of any efforts by Senator Joseph McCarthy and others of his ilk to seize the initiative under a Republican Administration to obtain documents regarding the secret loyalty investigations, which President Truman had refused to divulge.
When the FBI and agency security branches made their investigations of prospective employees, they went about interviewing people, who were promised confidentiality. Often, such persons spoke out of pettiness, jealousy, or ignorance, but such raw statements nevertheless wound up in the investigated person's file, and if obtained by someone such as Senator McCarthy, could be exploited in an effort to show what he had thus far been unable to show, that there were subversives within the Government. By doing so, Senator McCarthy would undermine the Eisenhower Administration by deterring able public servants from applying for Government employment and also compromise internal security procedures. J. Edgar Hoover had consistently opposed opening the raw files. In addition, allowing Senator McCarthy to have this data would provide him and others a green light to go further, ultimately undermining already badly shaken public confidence in Government employees.
A letter writer indicates that he had heard some people express concern regarding the trip of President-elect Eisenhower to Korea out of fear that something would happen to him, causing Vice-President-elect Nixon then to become President, suggests as a remedy that the Vice-President-elect travel with him, such that if anything happened to President-elect Eisenhower, the same would likely befall Vice-President-elect Nixon.
A letter writer remarks on the death of Thomas C. Hayes, who had been a "useful citizen" of Charlotte, having taken time to write the Legislature in 1929, with a petition in favor of the city manager form of city government, authorization for which was then passed by the Legislature. He says that Mr. Hayes would be greatly missed by his friends and neighbors.
A letter writer from Rock Hill, S.C., indicates, in response to an earlier letter which had suggested that the Revised Standard Version of the Bible was undermining the King James Version and concepts of the virgin birth and divinity of Jesus, that such was not the case. He points out that in Matthew 1:24, and in other passages, the word "virgin" was retained, as was the divine nature of Jesus. He cites several other examples and also indicates that applying "you" to Jesus did no violence to his divine nature, as he had referred to himself as the "son of man". He urges not becoming confused over technicalities.
A problem, however, could arise if you were to apply "yous" to Jesus, as it is a bastardized pronunciation of the English, derived apparently from some immigrants' misunderstanding of the alternative referential plurality or singularity of "you", determined only by the context of the usage, distinguished in Southernese unnecessarily and redundantly by the equally bastardized, "you all". Perhaps further confusing the issue is the motto, "e pluribus younum".
A letter from three "lonesome sailors aboard an amphibious ship" seeks correspondence with members of the opposite sex, indicating that they had a short stay in Charlotte—assuming it not to be a generic letter sent to several cities—and were greatly impressed by their wonderful treatment from its inhabitants, finding that people back home had forgotten them. They provide an address in San Francisco to which to write.
The first thing, girls, which you might suggest to them is that they need to correct their use of "it's" for "its", before getting down to the "it"
A letter from A. W. Black, who had not written to the newspaper in awhile, also responds to the criticism by the previous writer of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, indicating that the referenced verse, Isaiah 7:14, did not involve a prophecy regarding Jesus, who had lived about 700 years after the time of Isaiah.
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.