Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the Japanese Cabinet took the first two steps toward democratization of Japan by approving for submission to the Diet women's suffrage and the lowering of the voting age from 25 to 20. There were 21.6 million women eligible to vote in Japan. Another 21 to 42 million Japanese would be made eligible by lowering the voting age. General MacArthur had provided to Premier Shidehara on Thursday directives for major revision of the Japanese Constitution, unchanged for half a century, including the revision for women's suffrage.

Striking longshoremen began returning to their jobs, easing the labor situation. In all, 35,000 to 60,000 were on strike and it was not clear yet whether a general resolution had been reached. The coal strike, however, remained unresolved, accounting for half of the remaining 400,000 idle workers. The AFL Central States Drivers Council, a Teamsters affiliate, filed a strike ballot petition.

General Eisenhower reaffirmed a stern application of the de-Nazification policy for Germany, that the ban on Nazis would be permanent. The burden would be on the individual to show that he was reformed. He estimated that it might take 50 years to re-educate Germany in democratic ideals, a belief echoed by his deputy, Lt. General Lucius Clay.

In Argentina, chaos reigned as gun fighting in the streets involving police took place, with one killed and 35 wounded, including six policemen. The only authority in the country were the Army and Navy.

In Paris, Mme. Pierre Laval made an impassioned plea to reporters for her husband's life, set to be taken on Monday by a firing squad. She told of how she had helped Jewish friends escape from the Nazi occupation zone in France. She contended that her husband had wanted to encircle Germany in the mid-thirties but lost confidence after the sell out by the Allies at Munich.

In Nuremberg, Rudolf Hess claimed complete loss of memory of anything more remote than ten days past. He was shown photographs of Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels and the rest of the Nazi hierarchy, but claimed no memory.

In Tokyo, Kenneth Yunone, a translator, was scheduled to go on trial for war crimes. He had bragged in his diary of beheading an Allied prisoner and was also accused of beheading an American flyer (though apparently one and the same) and urging drunk Japanese soldiers to bayonet to death three other prisoners in November, 1943. He had been captured on April 25, 1944 at Hollandia in New Guinea. One of six missionaries who witnessed the massacre of the four prisoners related the story.

In the sixth in the series of articles by General Jonathan Wainwright, hero of Corregidor, he tells of the day the Japanese hit in force on Luzon in their landing at Lingayen Gulf, striking at the beaches at Vigan. They landed 84 transports loaded with men. The American forces, without an air force, stood helpless. The Navy was equipped only with a small number of PT-boats and those were far to the south.

General MacArthur had ordered an attack and destruction of the landing forces. But it had not been possible, as there was no room to deploy a sizable force between the mountains and the beaches.

The shooting war began December 16, with an attack at Tagudin by a platoon of Filipino soldiers under General Wainwright's command, against two busloads of Japanese heading south from Vigan. It was the beginning of the Pacific land war. The entire thrust of the action from that point forward in Northern Luzon was to delay as much as possible the offensive of the Japanese.

Beginning December 21, the Japanese came down the only route available to the south, along the coastal plain, and were met five miles north of San Fernando by one battalion and one regiment under the General's command. The troops were overwhelmed by the Japanese strength and dispersed into the mountains where many were lost, some forming guerilla units after the fall of Bataan, harassing the Japanese for many months.

In Hershey, Pa., Milton Hershey, founder of the chocolate company in 1903, passed away at age 88. He had failed in his first three attempts as a candy merchant, successively in Philadelphia, New York, and Chicago, specializing in caramel. Finally, in Lancaster, Pa., he succeeded and sold his caramel candy business after fifteen years for a million dollars, which he then invested in the chocolate company. The operation extended into Cuba's sugar cane fields. He had been an active philanthropist as well.

The war and its aftermath had caused divorce rates in Mecklenburg County to soar to unprecedented heights, 450 thus far during 1945. In North Carolina at the time, the only two grounds available for divorce were adultery and two-year separation. Most divorces were based on the latter ground.

On the editorial page, "Sickness" comments on a lynching which had taken place on Wednesday night in Madison, Florida, as Jesse James Payne had been returned to the community for arraignment following arrest the previous June for attempted rape of a white child. Mr. Payne had been run down by a posse in June only to be saved by Highway Patrolmen who spirited him away to the State prison for safekeeping pending trial. When he had been returned the previous Tuesday, the Sheriff did not think it necessary to post a special guard around the jail.

The piece predicts that there might be some outcry in the South and even in Madison, and probably some investigation of the Sheriff.

"At best, this will be treatment for the fever that burned in Madison Wednesday night. It will do little to cure the sickness that still runs in the blood of all of us."

"Queens' Journey" suggests that there was a note of good will internationally in the shipment of 24 queen bees from Montgomery, Alabama, to the French Society of Beekeepers of the Lower Rhone Valley. The bees were designed to replace those wiped out by the Nazis. The consequence had been severely reduced pollenization and, in turn, resultant decrease of food crops, as well as depleted floral and perfume industries.

"Emancipation" suggests that it was bad timing for the Congress to be celebrating its independence from FDR's watchful eye. President Truman had proved much more solicitous of Congress from his decade as a Senator.

"Scholar's Reaction" notes the address by James B. Conant, president of Harvard, to the University of North Carolina on Founders Day, October 12, the occasion of the sesquicentennial of the opening of the University—although the cornerstone had been laid in 1793, so don't scratch your head should you be puzzled by the recollection that there was a sesquicentennial celebrated also in 1943.

Dr. Conant, who was instrumental in the Manhattan Project and had witnessed the Trinity test of the atomic bomb on July 16, had discussed, among other things, the part a university should play in the life of the community apart from those who attend the school. He believed that academics would become the focal points for leadership in social and economic problems.

He urged that academic freedom was essential, "absolute freedom of discussion, absolutely unmolested inquiry."

"We must have a spirit of tolerance which allows the expression of all opinions, however heretical they may appear. On this point there can be no compromise. We are either afraid of heresy within our universities, or we are not."

If the former, the door to cultural development would be closed. If the latter, the challenge would be accepted to lead "the way in developing a unified, coherent culture, the expression of a true democracy in a scientific age."

He found, concludes the piece, no significant new challenge in the atomic age which had not been present in any previous new age, that the real threat, as always, was in "surrender to the forces of bigotry."

Dr. Conant would become the first Ambassador to West Germany, appointed by President Eisenhower in 1955 and serving two years.

As we pointed out by serendipity during the week, another Harvard product, President Kennedy, would speak similarly to the University on Founders Day in 1961. Among other things he would say, in addressing the nuclear age, was: "We must distinguish the real from the illusory, the long-range from the temporary, the significant from the petty, but if we can be purposeful, if we can face up to our risks and live up to our word, if we can do our duty undeterred by fanatics or frenzy at home or abroad, then surely peace and freedom can prevail. We shall be neither Red nor dead, but alive and free—and worthy of the traditions and responsibilities of North Carolina and the United States of America."

The excerpt from the Congressional Record has Congressman John Rankin of Mississippi speaking in favor of a Missouri Valley Authority, suggesting that the Congress was being flooded with power trust propaganda against it. But he did not wish to provide assent for publication of the Congressional Record for public dissemination on the topic because the transcript contained many misleading statements made in testimony by power trust witnesses.

Marquis Childs comments on the offhand announcement by President Truman at a press conference at Linda Cottage near Reelfoot Lake in Western Tennessee regarding the decision not to share the atomic bomb, that he had not discussed the determination with Canada or Great Britain, but was sure they would agree that no other nation outside these three should be privy to the secret.

Dr. Irving Langmuir of General Electric, as previously pointed out by the column October 10, had asserted that it was likely the Soviets would be able to surpass the present American-possessed atomic technology in short order. He thought that America might stay ahead of the race for a decade, but eventually Russia would surge in front. Eventually, they would have the most powerful bomb.

His prediction would prove correct.

It was believed that ultimately the Russians would have the capability at the push of a button to obliterate the entire population of the United States.

"Is that the only choice we have? It is destruction of one half the world or the other half? Or is it total annihilation?"

Some were speculating that President Truman's old cronies in the Senate, Senator Harry Flood Byrd of Virginia, Senator Tom Connally of Texas, and Senator Kenneth McKellar of Tennessee, had been the primary influences on his decision. Each had stated publicly his view that the secret should not be shared. But each of these men ranged in age between 58 and 76, were born and grew up in the rural South before the age of the automobile. Apparently, they rejected the view of Dr. Langmuir.

"This is a moment in history when the weight of the dead past may condemn not a generation or a nation, but a race, a people, a world."

Samuel Grafton comments on the vast change of perception on Capitol Hill of academics, especially nuclear physicists, since the advent of the atomic bomb. Previously, members of Congress took a jaded approach to the learned, but now displayed rapt attention to every nuance of expression, looking for answers on how to handle the new nuclear age.

A letter to the editor compliments The News on its decision to allow former Associate Editor Burke Davis to concentrate on general assignments.

Drew Pearson labels his column for the day "Random thoughts of a 'chronic liar'", referring to his own reputation, saying that he was tired of merely reporting events, wished to think for a change.

The other dreary message had come from the atomic scientists, predicting that Russia would soon be able to develop the weapon on their own. And to top it, the chief living expert on the atom, Werner Heisenberg, had disappeared.

It had been reported that the amount of material necessary to blow up New York could be smuggled into the country in a package the size of a loaf of bread and the machinery necessary to build the bomb available in a bicycle shop. So, the long distance rockets would not even be necessary as a delivery device.

And then there was the news of the failure of the London Foreign Ministers Conference.

But, he hastens to add, out of this dreary prospect might come the realization that friendship would have to be the watchword henceforth rather than traditional diplomacy or standing armies.

He advocates establishing within the Government a Department of Peace.

"A drowning man will grasp at anything to save himself. Since we now admit that civilization is in danger of going under, perhaps we'll grasp at such a revolutionary thing as trying to work at the Sermon on the Mount and peace."

He suggested that many would call him a chronic liar or crazy for suggesting such a thing, but perhaps it was not so far-fetched.

He cites the example of former Assistant Secretary of State Nelson Rockefeller, who had done a pretty good job with Latin America until he decided to be friendly to Argentina, exchanging professors, students, and journalists, a necessary gesture if the two peoples were to effect mutual understanding.

Russia presented a more difficult task, as it had been isolated in the world community for twenty years following the Revolution. That had produced inevitable suspicion. One could not blame Russia for not wanting to enter the United Nations Organization without veto power, just as the Senate had rejected the League of Nations in 1921 on the same basis.

He comments that he had recently been on a train from Washington to St. Louis where he observed twenty Russian officers and their wives having a terrible time with their tickets and not understanding anything the porter was trying to tell them. At that point, a Department of Peace might have entered the picture and enabled lasting impressions of good will. The Government should take prominent visitors from foreign countries under its wing and show them around. Exchange students and professors might be invited from Russia to enable better mutual understanding of both cultures and both languages.

Harry Golden writes of Alexis de Tocqueville's premier work, Democracy in America, published in two volumes, in 1835 and 1840. He had stated that within a hundred years the country would have 150 million people and would cover the entire expanse between the polar regions and the tropics, extending from coast to coast. He had stated that Europe had 400 million people and, in proportionate time, the United States would also reach that figure.

Mr. Golden somewhat imprecisely quotes De Tocqueville's optimistic prediction for the country, viz.: "Nor will bad laws, revolutions, civil wars, and anarchy be ever able to obliterate that love of prosperity and that spirit of enterprise which even now seem to be distinctive characteristics of these people, or to extinguish that knowledge which guides them on their way."

The quote, from the Conclusion of Volume I, actually ran: "Nor will bad laws, revolutions, and anarchy be able to obliterate that love of prosperity and that spirit of enterprise which seem to be the distinctive characteristics of their race, or to extinguish that knowledge which guides them on their way."

But don't blame him. As he points out, the Charlotte library at the time did not have a copy of the book and so he had to rely on a secondary source. No doubt, the library has it now.

Speaking of a slight misquote, for the sake of historical accuracy, we must correct President Kennedy's addition of one errant phrase, at around the 14-minute mark, in his otherwise eloquent speech of October 12, 1961. The correct version may be found here, as it was in the original text of his speech, mangled in the re-typing following edits. But don't blame him. He was doing all the work. We were just listening.

The slow one now will later be fast.

Actually, he may have been right all along. After all, the State was First in Flight, also.

As a postscript, after writing the above note, we have found out that William C. Friday, the former president of the University of North Carolina, and present on the rostrum with President Kennedy in that capacity on October 12, 1961, passed away at age 92 the day before yesterday, October 12, 2012. Everything good you may read about him is true.

The only thing we may add is that once during the early 1970's, he gave a lift to a couple of friends of ours who were out of gas, picked them up and took them back into town. That is the kind of fellow he was.

And we always found it interesting, because just four or five years earlier, we had run out of gas one afternoon in our Rambler at the entrance to Wake Forest. Along came a fellow who stopped and gave us a hand, called a nearby service station. His name was Dr. Ralph Scales. That is the kind of fellow, we suppose, he was also.

Remember it, should you ever run out of gas. A college president is probably about the most reliable help you can find.