Battalion Editorials
Page 2
'*W'
TUESDAY, MARCH 6, 1951
We re Only in the ‘Hatching Stage
Curfew Isn H the Answer
US Must Arm During Critical Year
r'lVIC LEADERS of Waco, Texas, are in
^ the middle of a hot argument as how to
best combat juvenile delinquency.
Hottest issue of the argument is wheth
er or not to pass a curfew for teenagers.
Supporters of the curfew point out that ex
cept in unusual cases there is little reason
for a youth to roam the streets after mid
night. The district attorney, one of the op
ponents of the plan, believes that it would
be unenforcable. He especially opposes the
proposal of a $10 fine for the parents of
children caught violating the curfew.
Sometimes stop-gap measures such as a
curfew must be used to bring immediate ac
tion against a bad problem. But it must be
realized that curfew and like measures are
merely levees thrown against a flood. They
really do nothing to stop the flood.
The real fault lies with parents’ failure
to realize their obligations and responsibili-
Now Our State
Has No Communists
HPEXAS HAS no Communists.
*■ Or at least our good state has none who
profess this affiliation and who will pub
licly say so.
The Legislature recently passed a bill
which would require all Communists to “reg
ister” with state officials. The time passed
last week and Homer Garrison, director of
the Department of Public Safety, hasn’t had
a single Red confess to him.
Now Garrison says he will throw the
book at ’em if he finds any.
They’ve had their chance to admit their
faults, we suppose, and since no one has
proudly waved the hammer and sickle, may
be there are no Communists in Texas.
We don’t think so. In the past, several
men have boasted that they were party mem
bers. As far as we know, quite a few of
them still reside in the Lone Star State.
But, no. Texas can’t have any Commun
ists. If any were here, they would have reg
istered.
Sacre bleu! When are we going to stop
wasting time and money with loyalty oaths
and now “I’m a Red” pledges? If you were
a Communist, you wouldn’t be shouting it
from the housetops—not if you lived here.
Neither would we.
And neither will the Communists.
ties. Juvenile delinquency is just one of the
many glaring illustrations of the moral de
generacy of our times.
For too often, people are willing—indeed
they try very hard—to gain the rights, plea
sures, and social approbation of society
which is given by marriage and family. But
the parent has very definite responsibilities
to his children. And those responsibilities
are not fulfilled by “giving” to junior. Week
ly allowance, loan of the family car, and
allowing him personal freedom to come and
go as he pleases will never make up to the
youngster for lack of real care for his train
ing and personal problems.
Until an individual is willing to sacrifice
much of his own personal pleasure to guide,
help, 'and instruct his children, he has no
right to be a parent.
Childplay Can
Be Made Useful
THHE RIFLEMAN has been, and still is, a
key figure in the development of our
country. The frontier has vanished, or per
haps we should say just moved several
thousand miles to Korea. In one respect,
at least, the fundamental picture has not
changed.
The American rifleman in Korea has or
needs the same confidence in his weapon,
physical strength, and woodsmanship as his
forebears. He is also fighting alone against
the usual high odds, but the above qualities
will see him through now as well as in the
foreseeable future.
There has been a tendency on the part of
the American soldier to relax in these fun
damentals and rely on superweapons to even
the odds. This attitude has indeed been ex
pensive as the facts will show.
With the draft of 18-year-olds a distinct
possibility, the value of youthful experience
in .22 marksmanship is measurable in view of
the amount of training required under se
vere time limits. Stripes and personal sur
vival are the rewards for the man who
knows his rifle and how to handle it.
Until “push-button warfare” is a reality,
individuals and clubs can perform a valuable
public service in teaching youths the funda
mentals of marksmanship. Without instruc
tion, kids with .22’s are a nuisance; with in
struction, they are instruments of security.
(To survey the U. S. mobili
zation scene, take the tempera
ture of the countryside, and
check on the progress—or lack
of it — in the great defense
buildup, the Associated Press
assigned a special correspon
dent to visit key areas of the
home front. He has just re
turned from a trip through the
Middle West and summarizes
general impressions in the ac
companying story — the first
of four daily articles. This be
gins a series of Associated
Press reports, which will cover
the nation’s major production
areas.)
By RELMAN MORIN
(AP Special Correspondent)
r FHIS IS THE critical year for
A the great program to re-arm
the United States, re-build the
strength of its allies, and thus—
it is hoped—forestall the threat of
further Communist aggression.
It is critical because the gigantic
American program—a matter of
intense importance in the calcula
tions of the Soviet Union, too—is
still largely in the blueprint stage
and necessarily must remain so for
another six to 12 months.
By the summer of 1952, military
men expect to be breathing moi-e
easily—that is, if there is not an
other Korea or a major outbreak
in Eui’ope. But this year is, at
best, only a hatching stage for an
immense mobilization effort.
Briefly here are the major ob
jectives:
• Maintaining Operation Korea
•—now quite plainly a campaign of
attrition designed to prove to the
world in general, and Asia in par
ticular, that naked aggression does
not pay.
Rspi'inted from March 1951 Issue of Esqulr*
Copyrighf 1951 by Esquire, Inc
“Vve done my best to cheer him up, Doctor, at*
ways telling him to forget losing his job . . • ,
forget the bills piling up . . .forget thOj
threat of ill health . , .forget,, r f
American Platoon
Shakes Red Trap
How It Would Be In
Life Under Communist Rule
By JAMES MARLOW
WASHINGTON, MARCH 6—(A>>
” —I often wonder how it would
feel to be a Communist, particular
ly an American Communist, if the
party ever took over in this coun
try. I Don’t see how it could be
a very safe feeling.
In a country with political free
dom and political parties, a man
who cuts away from his party’s
line, whether he’s a Democrat or
Republican, may get defeated in
the next election.
But that’s the worst that can
happen to him. And then he can
go back to peddling bananas, run
ning a bank or practicing law and
if some of his old cronies ignore
The Battalion
Lawrence Sullivan Ross, Founder of Aggie Traditions
’'Soldier, Statesman, Knightly Gentleman”
The Battalion, official newspaper of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of
Texas, is published by students five times a week during the regular school year.
During the summer terms. The Battalion is published four times a week, and during
examination and vacation periods, twice a week. Days of publication, are Monday
through Friday for the regular school year, Tuesday through Friday during the summer
terms, and Tuesday and Thursday during vacation and examination periods. Subscrip
tion rates $6.00 per year or $.50 per month. Advertising rates furnished on request.
Entered as second-class
matter at Post Office at
College Staton, Texas,
under the Act of Con
gress of March 3, 1870.
Member of
The Associated Press
Represented nationally
by National Advertising
Service Inc., at New York
City, Chicago, Los An
geles, and San Francisco.
CLAYTON L. SELPH, DAVE COSLETT Co-Editors
John Whitmore, Dean Reed Managing Editors
Andy Anderson, Bob Hyghson Campus Editors
Ralph Gorman Sports Editor
Fred Walker Associate Sports Editor
Joel Austin City Editor
Vivian Castleberry. ’ Women’s Editor
Today’s Issue
John Whitmore Managing Editor
Bob Hughson - r Campus News Editor
Ralph Gorman - Sports News Editor
Joel Austin .City News Editor
T. M. Fontaine, Carter Phillips Editorialists
Allen Pengelly Assistant City Editor
Leon McClellan, Jack Fontaine, Ed Holder, Bryan Spencer, Bob Venable, Dale
Walston, Bee Landrum, Frank Davis, Phil Snyder, Art Giese, Cristy Orth,
James Fuller, Leo Wallace, W. H. Dickens, Fig Newton, Joe Price, Pete
Hermann, Wesley Mason, B. F. Roland, Ivan Yantis, Sid Ragsdale, Bill
Aaberg, Ide Trotter, John Hildebrand, Chuck Neighbors, Bob Selleck, Bill
StreiCh, Curtis Edwards, Howard Heard -...Staff Writers
Jimmy Ashlock, Joe Blanchette, Ray Holbrook, Joe Hollis,
Pat LeBlanc Sports Staff Writers
Sam Molinary, Bob Alderdice Staff Photographers
Sid Abernathy....:.. ...., Page Make-up
Dick Kelly Club Publicity Co-ordinator
Joe Gray Photo Engraving Shop Manager
Tom Fontaine, Johnny Lancaster, Charles McCullough, R. R. Peeples,
R. D. Witter Photo Engravers
Autrey Frederick Advertising Manager
Russell Hagens, Bob Haynie Advertising Representatives
him on the street is doesn’t dim
inish his life expectancy.
But in a Communist country the
man who breaks away from the
party, or disagrees with it, is in
bad shape and by this time every
Communist everywhere must know
it. There have been examples
enough.
Of course, it must be easy
enough for any ardent Communist,
now in good standing with the
party, to say to himself: “If the
party takes over I’ll get my re
ward: I’ll have a big hand in run
ning things.”
But he forgets, as many seem to
have forgotten, that maybe the
time will come when he steps on a
comrade’s toes, or annoys the big
boss, or worse, begins having his
own ideas, different from the
party’s current ideas.
There have been plenty of cases
like this in recent years. When the
party is just trying to come to
power, as it is in Italy, a Com
munist can still break away and
live to a ripe old age, provided the
party never wins.
But it’s a lot tougher to “de
viate”—fancy word for disagreeing
—once the Communist party has
seized power, as it has in . the coun
tries behind the Iron Curtain.
He “Deviated”
Only last week Communists
everywhere got a good insight—
certainly not the first—into what
happens to a gent who deviates.
This was in Czechoslovakia, where
Dr. Vlado Clements fell on bad
days.
Clements, former foreign minis
ter who vanished mysteriously
from his apartment in Prague Jan.
27, was in desperate shape, an an
nouncement said:
Clements and four others were
held on charges of spying, plotting
to assassinate President Element
Gottwald, overthrow the govern
ment, restore capitalism, and turn
Czechoslovakia toward the West.
Reading through the lines, it
would seem Clements had a big
difference of opinion with some of
his comrades. The party published
a report which said:
“We shall prove that there .is a
(See COMMIE LIFE, Page 4)
WITH U. S. SEVENTH Division,
” Korea, March 6 —(tP)— Com
munists in South Korean uni
forms Sunday surprised a platoon
of U. S. soldiers huddled in their
frozen hilltop foxholes on the east-
central front.
The Americans were waiting for
a platoon of South Korean troops
to pass through their lines for an
attack.
In the early morning mist, a
sentry’s challenge was followed by
a reply of “ROK (Republic of
Korea Soldiers.”
A column of 60 soldiers wound
up the hill. The Americans waved
and yelled greetings.
A moment later the Americans
were hugging the bottoms of their
foxholes. The troops were Com
munists disguised In South Ko
rean uniforms.
The Communists poured burp
(rapid fire) gun and rifle fire into
the foxholes and tried to throw
hand grenades.
“We were pinned down,” said
Sgt. Thomas D. Boyle, Odgen,
Utah. “We could do nothing but
lie there and pray. To rise up to
shoot was to commit suicide.”
Burp gun blasts cut the wires
from the field telephone in Boyle’s
foxhole. An unmanned radio and
machinegun position was 25 yards
away to the east on a small rise.
Pfc. Elmo Tomlin, Stockton,
Calif., spread the first alarm. As
a runner, he was waking up the
half of the platoon which was to
go down the hill for early break
fast.
He humped into the last man in
the column and discovered he was
LETTERS
Batt is Caught
With Geography Down
Editor, The Battalion:
“From Austin, the man flew to
Texas.” Sounds silly doesn’t it?
However, whoever wrote that arti
cle in the Batt of 27 February
headed, “William Leaves for Tour
of ‘Down Under’ Facilities,” made
just such an error in the fourth
from last paragraph.
I quote: “From Sidney, they will
fly to New South Wales ... (I
underlined the name Sidney be
cause the correct spelling is Syd
ney.)
Sydney, of course, happen to be,
and has been for years, the capital
of the State of New South Wales.
Cecil M. Palmer, ’40 & ’51
(Editor’s Note—The offending
reporter will be assigned a re
search report of the “Land Down
Under” with special emphasis on
the State of New South Wales and
its capital, Sydney (with a “y”
that is). Thanks for the correc
tion.)
a Noi'th Korean. The Red pointed
an American carbine at Tomlin
while two other Reds tied his
arms behind him.
Tomlin said he broke his
bonds, lunged at the Korean,
grabbed him from behind and to
gether they rolled down the
steep hill. The other Redsi were
too startled to act.
“I banged that Gook's head on
every rock and every tree within
range,” said Tomlin. “We rolled
on to the road below—he was out
cold.”
Bruised and scratched, Tomlin
ran to the company command post
and relayed the report to his com
mander, Lt. Byron D. Meadows
of Huntington, West Va.
Meanwhile on the hill, Boyle
and Cpl. William Byrd of Tucum-
cari, N. M., made a dash for the
machinegun position. Boyle rad
ioed for help and directed mor
tar fire.
Byrd found the machinegun fro
zen. He thawed is out with his
body, heat, then cut loose with -a
covering fire that permitted other
American soldiers to get into pos
ition to fire on the enemy.
Lt. Gardner H. Marchand of
Rochester, Mass., platoon leader,
set up a new position to fire. He
ran over the ground barefooted
■with his boots in his hand “be
cause I didn’t have time to put
them on when the shooting start
ed.”
Marchand ran more than half a
mile up the hill to the scene of the
battle and joined the fighting with
his pistol.
(See FLEE TRAP, Page 4)
• Fortifying the Western Eu
ropean allies under Gen. Eisen
hower’s leadership and under plans
still subject to great debate— with
remaining political differences
seeming mainly to boil down to
differences of the degree of U. S.
contribution.
• The buildup of U. S. home
defenses in all categories, plus the
strengthening of hemispheric de
fenses and our Pacific fortifica
tions—with emphasis especially up
on the buildup for the air forces
and the acceleration of the atomic
weapons program.
All this calls for tremendous ex
pansion in the training of man
power as well as the production of
armaments—at great cost to the
American taxpayer. The goal in
manpower for the armed forces has
been set, tentatively, at 3,500,001)
by the summer of 1952. The army’s
target for this coming summer,
alone, is 22 or 23 infantry divi
sions.
The dollar cost for purely mili
tary purposes, according to the
presidential budget report, adds up
to more than $61 billion for the
two-year period dating from the
outbreak of the Korean war to
the end of June, 1962.
Other Billions Asked
This figure includes President
Truman’s estimate of nearly $41,-
500,000,000 for military expendi
tures for the next fiscal year, be
ginning this July. It is only part
of the overall cost, however. Many
more billions will go into non-mili
tary foreign aid, civil defense pro
grams, and the whole vast area of
expansion in governmental activi
ties—local, state and national.
The blueprints are piled up—but
the program is already rolling.
Industry is buckling into the tre
mendous task of spewing out the
weapons, transport, clothing and
all the thousand-and-one articles
needed to put a fighting man in the
field and keep him there, in action.
But even with the enormous pro
duction capacities of American in
dustry, months will elapse before
the United States is ready to fight.
Why?
Reasons for Delay
Some of the reasons are physical
. . . shortages in critical materials,
freight cars and so on . . . also the
technical problems of tooling up
to make newer and more destruc
tive machines than we used in
World War II.
Some are economic ... to rearm
without cutting too deeply into the
high American standard of living
... to produce for civilian use
along with, and in addition to, pro
ducing weapons.
But the biggest appears to be
psychological, a question of atti
tude.
So far as I have been able to
observe, there is little or no general
feeling of urgency anywhere.
I have visited parts of the South,
the Middle West and travelled the
length of the Atlantic seaboard in
the past two weeks. My impres
sions are the same in every section
of the country: a let’s-take-it-in-
stride attitude.
Average Man Unalarmed
Some military men and govern
ment officials are apprehensive,
fearful of the possibilities of a
fm-ther outbreak of war this year,
this time in Europe. But very few
people in factories, offices, on
Broadway or Main Street, U.S.A.,
or in government generally, share
opinions that can be classified as
reflecting (a) alarm or .(b) a sense
of real emergency.
There are obvious factors con
tributing to all this.
“I have a duty ... to present
publicly ... my conception ... of
what is required to prevent another
international catastrophe,” wrote
Gen. George C. Marshall, U. S.
Chief of Staff, in his final World
War II report dated Sept. 1, 1945.
Gen. Marshall then expanded at
length on his recommendation for
//i\ v
with ' 2 THE RUBBING
COVERS SCUFF MARKS I GIVES SHOES
RICHER COLOR! Black, Tan, Brown,
Dark Tan, Mid-Tan,
srr | J 'ZE&ZsQZ \X 3r ®* ue ' Oxblood,
4sk kL ODOty [ ( Mahoga ny,
nwramMBn Tk n 'Wi@r!i r and Neutral
KIWI
(KEE-WEE)
SHOE POLISH
a peacetime system of universal
military training—a requisite to
the nation’s security that, he said,
George Washington originally pro
posed.
“We finish each bloody war with
a feeling of acute revulsion against
this savage form of human be
havior, and yet on each occasion
we confuse military preparedness
with the causes of war and then
drift almost deliberately into an
other catastrophe,” Gen. Marshall
wrote over five years ago.
Cost Was Heavy
“The cost of refusing his (Wash
ington’s) guidance is recorded in
the sacrifice of life and in the ac
cumulation of mountainous debts.
We have continued impractical.
“We have ignored the hard real
ities or world affairs.... We must
start, I think, with a correction of
the tragic misunderstanding that
a security policy is a war policy.
. . . Until it is proved that such a
solution has been found to prevent
wars, a rich nation which lays
down its arms, as wc have done
after every war in our history, will
court disaster. ...
“The technique of war has
brought the United States, its
homes and factories into the front
line of world conflict. They escap
ed destructive bombardment in the
Second World War. They would
not in a third. It no longer ap
pears practical to continue what we
once conceived as hemispheric de
fense as a satisfactory basis for
our security. We arc now con
cerned with the peace of the entire
world. And the peace can only be
maintained by the strong.”
Attitude Improves
The attitude of defeatism about
Korea is no longer as marked as
it was in midwinter. While the
great debate on foreign policy has
been prolonged in Washington,
Congress has evidenced no rush to
meet administration demands for
such things as extension of the
draft age—to include 18-year-olds
—or heavier taxes to finance vast
mobilization costs.
When the nation was apprehen
sive, at is was at the start of the
Korean war, and later, when the
Chinese Reds appeared in the field,
the defense effort moved more
smoothly and more rapidly.
Vice versa,' when in November
the war appeared to be won, dif
ficulties and bottle-necks suddenly
re-appeared.
The barometers of these changes
are in industrial plants, the rec
ords/ in procurement offices, and
the story of labor relations.
For example, ordnance procure
ment authorities say that, a year
agp, it was hard to got a factory
to take a defense order. Korea
changed that.
Production figures went up in
most factories during the emer
gency-attitude periods., In those
same months, disputes between
management and labor dropped off.
Union Troubles
There weye some instances where
a manufacturer took a defense or
der on Monday. On Tuesday, he.
received a union “request” foV a
cost-of-living increase. There wene
reports, too, that some union lead
ers “discouraged” the incentive
system in factories producing ma
terials for defense.
But the record also shows the
many occasions when unions or
dered their members to end a
strike in order to get on with crit
ical production. The nickel-plat
ers, making plated pipe for the
atomic energy commission, are one
of many examples.
These evidences of attitude
shifted up and down. Public opin
ion reacted quickly and faithfully
to events, at home and abroad, as
newspapers reported them.
Just Democracy
Today, labor, industry and gov
ernment all have complaints
against each other, arising out of
the defense effort. That is do
mocracy in action, huge, loose-
jointed and intensely individual
istic.
In an explosive emergency—a
Pearl Harbor, for example—these
arc all put aside. In less decisive
times, they can become big and
dangerous.
Attitude is a great factor affect
ing the speed and smoothness of
rearming. But it isn’t the only one.
The late Hermann Goering said,
when Germany was arming, “the
German people would rather have
guns than butter.” American in
dustry believes it can supply both.
Will Take Time
That obviously takes time and
greatly expanded facilities for pro
duction. Automobile firms expect
to go on making cars and tanks,
simultaneously. They have the
know-how, the experience of the
last war, and they believe they can
do it. Factories, generally, are
trying hard to handle defense of-
ders on top of their regular cus
tomer orders.
For that reason, months will
elapse before vast streams of weap
ons and equipment will rumble
down the assembly lines.
So this is the critical year. The
United States is arming. Bift
there’s a long way to go.
unim
Bryan 2’8 $79
NOW SHOWING
KtMtu) uewMK wain fa nuna ■,<* v**
QUEEN
NOW SHOWING
TODAY LAST DAY
FIRST RUN
—Features Start—
1:28 - 3:00 - 4:45 - 6:30
8:15 - 10:00
FORO-FLEMING'O’BRIEN
NEWS — CARTOON
STARTS WEDNESDAY
FIRST RUN
STORY of the infamous
TRI-STATE
GANGI
LI E ABNER
Dinnertime?
By A1 Capp
Bible Verse
r THEN PETER said, “Silver and
gold have I none; but such as I
have give I thee: In the name of
Jesus' Christ of Nazareth rise up
and walk.” —The Acts 3:6.