The Kokomo Tribune from Kokomo, Indiana • Page 20

4 KOKOMO (Ind.) TRIBUNE Monday, Dee. 14, 1953 Time Out In the Arms Race Stewart Alsop: Children and Television A survey conducted by Paul Witty, professor of education at Northwestern University, shows that the average elementary school child spends 22 hours a week watching television. This is more than half the time that the average male adult works each week. In view. of the poor quality of many television programs, this situation is deplorable.

But merely deploring it is not enough. Parents and educators must accept this survey as a challenge. Professor Witty recommends, among other things, that parents and teachers should help children become better and more interested readers as an antidote to their TV addiction. "The home and the school," he advises, "should cooperate to lead each child to read various kinds of materials with ease and understanding." In other words, children should be taught that reading can give them pleasure. But they cannot be taught this by parents who themselves dislike to read or are too lazy, nor by teachers whose reading interests are narrow and inflexible.

Professor Witty also suggested that efforts should be made to improve television programs. The viewing habits of children stress the importance of making educational television stations avail- able. These would tend both to raise the offerings of commercial programs, and to prove attractive to young viewers. The problem is serious and has become worse instead of better in the past few years. Since 1950 the time spent by elementary school children in watching television has increased from 21 to 22 hours a week, while the time spent by high school pupils has gone from 14 to 17 hours a week.

Before it can be corrected, however, concrete action must be taken. Talk alone will not alleviate the problem. We believe Professor Witty has some excellent sugestions. First, parents can do a great deal, as he points out, by encouraging their children to do more reading of wholesome literature. Good books are just as.much an adventure as a television thriller, once the boy or girl gets started reading them.

Secondly, parents can help to make the standard of television programs by writing to the national chains which CBS, and so on. A steady mail barrage criticizing unwholesome programs, praising the good ones and urging more of the high quality ones makes an impression on those who are responsible for our public entertainment -0- The Columnists Disagree The New Yorker magazine is fond of reprinting contradictory items from different newspapers under a heading "What Paper D'Ya Read?" Now and then we are tempted to follow suit with a headline, "What Columnist D'Ya Read?" One of those times was today when we read Stewart Alsop's column which appears on this page. Mr. Alsop disposes of rumors that Winston Churchill had opposed President Eisenhowers United Nations speech last Tuesday, by stating positively that Churchill congratulated the President warmly and proposed strong British support for his proposal. That confused us no end, since we read a column earlier by Roscoe Drummond, chief of the New York Herald Tribune's Washington bureau, reporting that behind Mr.

Eisenhower's U. N. speech was the untold story of the hurt feelings, even the wounded pride, of Sir 'Drummond wrote that "it was with pained and almost unyielding reluctance that the granite and awesome Churchill, whose stature dominated the Bermuda scene, was brought to approve the President's galvanic device of flying from the Big Three conference to the U. N. to become, the blazoned spokesman of the free world." To Churchill, wrote Drummond, the idea was disconcerting, for it seemed extraneous to the business of the Bermuda conference.

"It set up a rival stage to an infinitely more dramatic one." Churchill didn't want a new play to begin before his had finished, and he probably was not quite reconciled to the idea that another should play the leading role, says Drummond. In the end, the Herald Tribune correspondent wrote, it was Anthony Eden who intervened and by his own decisiveness got Churchill to assent to the speech. Thus Drummond. But Alsop pictures it quite differently. He says that Churchill not only strongly approved the speech but suggested two revisions to which Eisenhower agreed.

The rumors that Churchill opposed the speech are all wrong, says Alsop. Quite aside from that interesting and disputed account, however, was one act of the President, in connection with his visit to the U. that pleased millions of his countrymen. Before he went into the big assembly room to. address the nations of the world, he stopped in the small room in the U.

N. building that is reserved for prayer and meditation. There he prayed. It was another demonstration of the devout attitude which the President has taken toward his great position of responsibility. Mr.

Eisenhower has manifested this reverent side on other occasions, and it is reassuring to Americans that they have a President who acknowledges the need for divine guidance. From Other Editors Concerning Newspaper Errors (Columbia, Ledger-Enquirer) Newspaper editors sometimes wake up screaming from dreams of and typographical errors. Many an editor and publisher has been verbally sometimes actually, physically" of those errors which inadvertently slip into the news columns. The publication, The Inland Printer, recently had something to say on behalf of newspapers in this connection. It reported the case of the editor of a small town weekly who was severely criticized because of a typographical error appearing in his newspaper, who in the next issue published this rebuttal: "Yes, we know there were some errors in last week's paper.

We will further agree that there were some errors in the issue of the week before, but before bawling us out too unmercifully about it. we want to call your attention to these facts: "In an ordinary newspaper column, there about 10,000 letters, and there are seven possible wrong positions for each letter, making 70,000 chances to make errors and several million chances for transpositions. "Did you know that in the sentence, To be or not to be," by transpositions alone 2,729,022 errors can be made. Now aren't you sorry you got mad about that little mistake last week?" We do not vouch for the arithmetic used in the editor's report. But if the figure of 2,729,022 possible errors in one sentence is anywhere near being correct, then there were about 27 billion possibilities for errors in this article up to the period you find now.

We have no way of knowing in advance whether there will be typographical errors in this column. But by now the chances for them to occur have been increased by more than five million. Even if there are a few, we'll feel mighty good after considering that it was possible, through the period at the end of this sentence, for 27,827,066,000 errors to be made. Red Tammany In the December issue of the Atlantic magazine Edgar Ansel Mowrer. analyzes the reasons for the increasing strength of the Communist Party in Italy.

He points out that despite the assistance given that country by the United Sates and the efforts of Italian statesmen who want to establish a sound democracy, one out of every three Italian voters marks his ballot for the Communists. It is always dificult for Americans to understand why anyone votes for the Communist Party. Mowrer explains, however, that in Italy the Reds are operating in much the same manner that Tammany Hall did in the United States. The Communists have developed strong party machinery able to deliver the vote even as Tammany did. This has been accomplished by the same kind of paternalism which worked so well for machine bosses in our own country.

While the Communists have been unable to gain control of the national governing body they have made conquests in cities and towns. Wherever Communist municipal governments prevail party members are given special favors, are protected and assisted in brushes with the courts, are provided with jobs and food. Mowrer sees two possible solutions in Italy. He believes that the democratic forces in Italy will eventually have to outlaw the Communists as a political party and will have to create other parties which can appeal to average people. Communists are dedicated to the idea that any means may be used to gain their ends.

It is surprising that they "resort to political tactics of the worst sort of that they have added refinements which make the tactics more vicious. Engraving things on the heads of pins is not unusual. Now a publishing company suggests that the points of pins can be engraved also. It is good to know that some of the finest pinheads in the business have been devoting their attention to this weighty problem. A googol, a noted mathematician has figured, is the number one followed by one hundred a googoplex is one followed by.

a googol of zeros. So who cares what we call the impossible addition of the family budget? Yes IM STILL AWAIT Mr MV CALL TO MOSCOW aaW. -f Churchill Backed Plan for Ike To Make Hisioric U. N. Address David Lawrence: GOP Should Weight Public Opinion Of Allied Trade with Red Chinese WASHINGTON.

They better start analying those telegrams and letters in the McCarthy- versus-the administration controversy over foreign policy received recently at the White House. The analysis may contain an answer as to whether the Republicans will lose control of both houses of Congress in 1954 anG also the presidential election in 1956. It would be worth while for the White House staff to conduct a mail research for it is irrelevant merely to count the telegrams and letters and sayi as the White House press secretary did the other day, that the telegrams were "slightly ahead" on the administration side whereas McCarthy was somewhat ahead on the letters. What must be ascertained basically is how many of the writers of the 50,000 telegrams and letters voted for Stevenson in 1952 and now are ready to switch their allegiance and how many voted for Eisenhower and now either will stay away from the polls or vote Democratic. A 50,000 sample is big enough as scientific studies have shown.

Actually many of the Gallup polls are based on a sample of only 2,000 per study. Judging by the information out it could be assumed that the count showed 52 per cent in favor of the administration and 48 per cent opposed to its policies. If the breakdown shows that of the Democrats 90 per cent differed with McCarthy and 10 per cent agreed with him it wouldn't be of much avail to the White House from a political viewpoint unless the Republican disaffection were also small. But if as many as 25 per cent of the Republicans are in disagreement with the President's position on a continuance of trade with Red China then Republican Chairman Leonard Hall may be repe'ating his classic remark after the Wisconsin election: "We're in trouble." Issues Net Clear How many of those who wrote letters or telegrams dealt with the issue on which they were asked to write? Many newspaper dispatches, for example failed to make the issues clear. Secretary Dulles himself garbled to a certain extent the Wisconsin senator's speech by attributing to him something he never said "perfumed notes to our allies." McCarthy was talking'about our vacillations in dealings with the Communists at Panmunjom.

Here is exactly how the reference to "perfumed notes" arose in Senator McCarthy's speech: "On Sept. 12. 1953, the Chinese Communists announced that they would not treat as prisoners of war American fliers who were shot down during the Korean War, over Manchuria. On Sept. 10, 1S53, the army had announced that some 900 American young men known to have been prisoners of the Communists in Korea were still unaccounted for.

Unaccounted for, as 'of tonight, my friends. why do I bring this situation up tonight in talking about the Republican'Party? The Republican Party did not create this situation, admit. We inherited it. But we are responsible for the proper handling of this situation as of tonight. And what are we going to do about it? Are we going to continue to send perfumed notes following the style of.the Truman- Acheson regime? Or are we going to take the only position that an honorable nation can that every uniformed American packed the pride and the power of this nation on his shoulders?" The Wisconsin senator's question, moreover, is still unanswered to this day.

News has been suppressed about the circumstances surrounding the detention of 900 American boys who still have not been returned despite the fact that the Korean armistice terms stipulated that all prisoners who wanted to come back must be returned. How many of the senders of the letters and telegrams faced that concrete issue when they expressed their views to the White House? Denounced Trade In another section of the same speech, to be sure, Senator McCarthy denounced the Allied trade with Red China. Great Britain, for instance, doesn't deny that she exported strategic Soviet Russia throughout the Korean War. Moscow has admitted publicly that Soviet Russia has been sending munitions and war materials to Red China during the Korean War. The Truman and Eisenhower administrations did not use their maximum influence with the Allies to stop that SIDE GLANCES By Galbraith trade.

That's the McCarthy charga and that's why he and other senators advocate cutting off financial and economic aid to the Allies if they insist on supplying war materials to the enemy in a war in which our own soldiers are engaged. How many of the senders of the letters and telegrams concerned themselves with that issue? The barrage of letters and telegrams means that there is a serious division of opinion about a policy of constant "give away" to our "Allies without obtaining a faithful adherence by them to the simple proposition of protecting the lives of American soldiers from stabs in the back with weapons made from materials sold by merchants in Allied countries. Any candidate for Congress in either party who wants to test that issue at the polls next autumn need have no doubt as to what the vote would be. The Doctor Says: Germs Spread Through Air By Carelessenss By EDWIN P. JORDAN.

M. D. Written for NEA Service Such serious diseases as pneumonia, influenza, and tuberculosis, not to mention the common cold, are undoubtedly spread from person to person through the air. 'The germ's or viruses which cause these diseases are coughed sneezed, spit, or breathed into the air by some person already infected. They float around for a time and are breathed in by someone who has not yet been attacked.

Some of those who complain most bitterly about colds and other infections are the most thoughtless when it comes to exposing others. They think nothing of going to the movies or other public places when they are coming down with an infection. Do Not Cover In the middle of coughing or sneezing often do not even cover the nose and mouth and thus expose all those near them to infection. Certainly they do not mean to make other people as miserable as they are themselves, but that is what happens. Not only is there that type of exposure, but the filthy habit of spitting in public places Is especially to be condemned.

Health authorities have long recognized the danger and spitting is forbidden in trains, streetcars, and other public conveyances. Few people spit on the floor of their own bomes. The spit contains millions of germs. In spite of the city ordinances and laws prohibiting this practice in many places, people in general do not seem to realize the danger. Someone who steps on a spot where another has just spit carried the germs into the home or wherever he or she is going.

Does Not Kill Germs The spit dries gradually, but drying does not kill the germs. In fact, drying may make it all the easier for the air to pick up the germs where they can be breathed in by anyone around. Not only is spitting, sneezing, and coughing a danger to others, but it is far from beautiful to see sidewalks, platforms, and places littered with spots around which one has to step carefully. For health reasons alone, however, if for no other, the laws against spitting should be enforced and people should learn to understand why this is a good health practice. We are exposed to enough dangers without producing unnecessary ones.

"You oraared a warm climate lor mrn last w.nter, doctor! I hope you'll repeat the trip did me so much good!" Neat Dodge A neat little congressional censorship dodge has been revealed by the U. S. Marine Corps. Inquiries to the Marine Corps public relations office on the military rec- of Reserve Joseph R. McCarthy in World War II are now answered by a' stock reply that all information must be obtained from the office of Sen.

Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin. real background of President Eisenhower's decision to make his historic speech to the United Nations is both interesting and significant. There have been all sorts -of reports that Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill strongly opposed the speech; that he persuaded the president to revise it radically; and even that Churchill wrote most of it himself. All this is wholly tin true.

The President, of course, had considered taaking a candid speech on the atomic threat "primarily to the American people." During the week before the Bermuda meeting Peter Edson: Making Atomic Plan Work Is A Major Task most important question about the Eisenhower plan for developing peaceful uses of atomic energy through the United Nations is, "What next?" There is considerable fear that, like the President's great foreign- policy speech to the U. S. newspaper editors last April, the atomic-energy plan may die on the vine for lack of active cultivation. President Eisenhower's plan was presented on the closing day of the United Nations General Assembly session. So there is nothing more that organization can do about it.

officially, till next year. The President did suggest that the subject be discussed in a subcommittee of the UN Disarmament Commission, whose creation was proposed by the United States Nov. 18. The full commission now consists of representatives of the 11 members of the Security Council, plus Canada. Two UN, disarmament commissions have labored for seven years without accomplishing a thing.

They have been caugfct helplessly between the conflicting Communist and anti-Communist disarmament plans. Differ en Control The Russians propose a ban on the use of atomic weapons and a cut of all armed forces by one third. The western powers proposed balanced reduction of armed forces and a system for inspection and verification of all weapons including atomic ones. After this, a ban on weapons of mass destruction could be put into effect. Last year French Delegate Jules Moch.

a Socialist, proposed a compromise disarmament plan in an effort to stop development of the European Defence Community to which he was bitterly opposed. But the Russians turned down the Moch plan, as well as a modified American-British-French plan presented later in the year by U. S. Delegate Ben Cohen. Out of this discouraging lack of progress grew the American plan of November to have disarmament studied by a subcommittee made up of only five powers, America, Britain, France, Russia and Canada.

It would meet in closed sessions to facilitate negotiation. It is this subcommittee to which President Eisenhower proposes that his new plan be referred. The President suggested that this subcommittee report its progress to the Security Council by Sept. 1, 1954. This is a reasonably safe interval for as of United States does not have any.

detailed plans on how the President's proposal could be practically carried oat. The Atomic Energy Commission technicians, who would know how much fissionable material would have to be allocated, weren't put to work on this problem before President Eisenhower made his speech. One such project might bo running an atomic reactor that could provide enough power to pump water from behind the dikes of Holland. Varying Approach While the impression gained from first reports of the Eisenhower plan was that it proposed putting all fissionable materials in a stockpile for peacetime uses, that idea was quickly dispelled. International control of atomic energy from the top down having failed to win acceptance, this idea was to build ultimate control 'from the bottom up.

Supplying fissionable materials for a few small research projects might be the beginning. From this, full international control might grow. The question is how much mat- terial and where would laboratories or the reactors be located? Also, what reactors? The United States itself does not, possess an economically sound atomic power unit that would be competitive with commercial power. These questions, and a hundred like them, are now bothering the new atomic bureaucracy of Washington. There is a further detail of who will push this plan before the UN, to keep it alive.

Ambassador Lodge has been U. S. member of the disarmament commission, but it has met only a few times this year. From now on it will be a full-time assignment for experts if the plan is to succeed. the idea of making such a speech instead to the United Nations'and to the world was born.

When TrN Secretary General Dag Haznmar- skjold cabled the President on December 4 to invite him to speak to the UN. Presidential aide C. D. Jackson was accordingly ordered to fly to Bermuda with the latest version of the much re-drafted "candor" speech. Arrived in Bermuda.

Jackson showed the speech to Secretary of State Dulles, who gave a copy to Foreign Minister Anthony Eden. Eden showed it to Churchill, and Churchill. Eisenhower, French Prime Minister Laniel and their principal aids, discussed the speech on Saturday, December 5. Two Revisions The speech was not in final form, and was still being re-drafted. Churchill strongly approved the idea of the speech but suggested two revisions.

He said that he believed that the speech would have a more powerful impact, especially on the British people, if a couple of paragraphs were rephrased. He suggested that one of these paragraphs be toned down that the other be given a firmer and more resolute tone. Eisenhower agreed, mnd the paragraphs in question were re- Eisenhower's language, not Churchill's. Churchill also suggested that Lord Cherwell, his scientific adviser, and Atomic Energy Com- missission Chairman Lewis Strauss consider the technical aspects of the proposal for a pool of fissionable material, to be sure there were no traps, before a final decision was taken. Eisenhower of course agreed, and Cherwell and Strauss had a long meeting on Saturday afternoon to look for traps.

When they found none, the final decision to go ahead with the speech was taken, and Eisenhower's acceptance was sent to Hammarskjold on Sunday, cember 6. That same morning, the President received from Churchill a personal note which greatly pleased him. The note congratulated the President in the warmest terms on the speech; said it reflected the President's candor and natural leadership; and promised strong British support for the President's proposal. So much for reports that Churchill opposed the speech. Molotov Informed Meanwhile, when the final decision to go ahead with the speech was taken, it was decided to cable American Ambassador Charles E.

Bohlen in Moscow, instructing him to ask for an audience with Soviet Foreign Minister V. M. Molotov. Bohlen was told to communicate the gist of the President's proposal to Molotov. assuring him that the proposal was made in all good faith, and that the American fi-iv- ernment earnestly hoped that the Soviet government would most seriously consider it.

The reaction of Molotov and his colleagues in the Kremlin became clear as early as Wednesday morning, when the Moscow radio immediately blasted the proposal, and The New York Daily Worker (which had no doubt been given the word) denounced It as a Wall Street plot. There was of course a not entirely resolved as this is the Kremlin's reaction might be the precise opposite. The Kremlin's stockpile of fissionable material is probably measured by now in the tons, and it would cost the Kremlin very little to offer to turn over to the United Nations a substantial amount of this material. This might well have given the whole free world the notion that East and West had thereby made a giant step toward total and infinitely dangerous illusion. Accepted Risk Tho President consciously accepted this risk, however, for two reasons.

First, in this case, the United States would instantly offer to match the Soviets, or better, and would at the same time embark on the "private" negotiations proposed in the speech. These conversations woulu demonstrate, once and for all, whether the Soviets were willing to negotiate seriously on atomic control. Second, the President feels deeply that no avenue whatsoever must be left unexplored, which might lead to bringing the terrible forces he described in his speech under control. Unfortunately, ihe Kremlin's response to the President's proposal seems to demonstrate, once and for all, that no such avenue exists. Quiet Brother Dr.

Samuel M. Brownell of Connecticut, new head of the U. S. Office of Education, hit Washington at just about the same time his brother, Attorney General Herbert Brownell. became embrbiled in the Harry Dexter White case.

Office of Education officials at first wondered if Dr. Brownell would have the same flair for hitting the headlines as his younger brother, but they've relaxed now. They've found the elder Brownell to be an extremely quiet, mild-mannered individual, too completely absorbed in the problems of education to get involved in any front-page controversies. Some Greenland Eskimos live more than 800 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Security Security regulations in the State Department are now so tight that officials aren't allowed to leave any papers on their desks when they leave their offices for any reason whatsoever.

The "Out." "In" and "Hold" baskets are supposed to be put away and officials are told to work from a clean desk at all times. The result is that even routine memoranda -and newspaper clippings have to be dug out of files whenever a State Department official wants to refer to them. The Kokomo Tribune Published rti. Rokomo IribiMM Member of fcnocialed Pren Press entitled to ihe fui gub.icatlim of news dispatchers ciediml to (I or not cri'ilited in thin and the liHral nvwt nuhllfthvd herein Knlered ctans mvlter Jaiiuarv 21 l'(05 al the poslnffice at Knknmo. Indiana uniler the of ConQri'M of March File ftoaumo tribune Fiiunilril 1HM) The Kokomo Unpaldi Foumled 1870 Tribune and Fnumlrd carrle.t IB ol Kakurno net Me mail in Howard Hot on.

Miami. Can Carroll Clinton Hamilton and Grant counliea including Elwood. per veai payable in advance 18.1)0. mail in Indiana uulirlde above tcrrllnrv. per veal pavahle in advance M.tft mall outftfde Indiana per vear oavabto in advance tlS.OO No mail tuhaeriDtiona accepted ill (owns where carrier to maJnlained..