The Charlotte News
Thursday, November 1, 1945
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that despite orders to the contrary from President Soekarno in Indonesia, Nationalists continued to clash with British troops, the violence now centering in Magelang, where British Gurka troops, supported by three British fighter planes, had recaptured most of the town. Elsewhere in Java, the tensions were reduced after a conference between the Nationalists and the Dutch held at Batavia.
Soviet troops in Manchuria were slated to begin a large-scale withdrawal the following day, to be completed by December 1.
General Cho En-Lai
In Tokyo, the Allies announced that Prince Konoye would not be appointed to revise the Japanese Constitution, though he had already begun the task.
In Berlin, the British stated that all evidence pointed to the deaths of Hitler and Eva Braun on April 30 at the Reichschancellery, as previously reported. The British concluded that their bodies had been burned outside the bunker. Both had committed suicide, Hitler by shooting himself in the mouth and Eva Braun by poison. Martin Bormann and Herr Doktor Goebbels, along with several others, had then burned the remains.
In London, the Labor Government announced its intention to include in public ownership civilian airlines and a 120 million dollar communications network, presently operated by Cable and Wireless, Ltd.
In Washington, the tax bill, with 5.920 billion dollars of tax cuts, was passed by the Senate and sent to the President for signature.
For the first time in four years, John L. Lewis, head of the UMW, appeared at the White House to consult briefly with President Truman in advance of the labor-management conference to which he would be a delegate beginning the following week.
Six Greyhound Bus lines east of the Mississippi went on strike, possibly set to spread nationwide.
The nation's idle workers now stood at 255,000, a net decrease of 20,000 in the previous 24 hours.
The twenty-second installment of the series of articles by General Jonathan Wainwright continues the story of the attempt to surrender the forces on Corregidor to General Homma on May 6, 1942. General Wainwright finally was able to sign a document of surrender at midnight acceptable to General Homma. General Wainwright sets forth the terms verbatim. Homma agreed to accept only the surrender of the troops under General Wainwright's command with an order from him that all other troops in the Philippines would be surrendered by their commanders at designated locations within four days.
The sad task of surrender was thus done.
The State of Georgia commuted the remaining sentence of Robert Elliott Burns, author of I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang, on the lam from Georgia for 23 years. The Parole Board did not grant a full pardon as Mr. Burns had admitted his guilt in the original $5 holdup in 1922. Mr. Burns had become a successful New Jersey businessman in the interim. Governor Ellis Arnall appeared at the hearing in support of his plea. It was Governor Arnall who had ended the practice of Georgia's notorious
The Mayor of Statesville sent an angry telegram to President Truman, telling him that the citizens did not appreciate his abrupt cancellation of his visit which had resulted in $30,000 of preparations by the community gone to waste. The citizens were said to be shocked and dazed. There were indications that the President might re-schedule the trip for early in 1946.
On the editorial page, "The Congress Needs Facts" comments on the efforts of the American Cotton Manufacturers to limit the minimum wage, set to go to 65 cents. The ACM wanted the Congress first to consult with the manufacturers before giving such a raise, contending that the manufacturers could not meet the wage increase without raising prices commensurately.
The piece supports the proposition favoring consultation.
But figures also showed that textile stock dividends had increased by 26.8 percent in 1944 while the price ceilings were in effect, representing the greatest gain of any industry in the period. It tended to belie the argument of the manufacturers that they could not turn a profit were the wage level to be increased to 65 cents.
"The Martyr" comments on State Senator Hugh Mitchell, who had planned the Truman visit for Statesville, only now to have his plans completely in ruins. Some claimed that it was deliberately scuttled by colleagues, wishing to diminish the Senator's popularity among his constituents. If so, the piece remarks, it would likely backfire as his unquestionable good faith in planning the event, its cancellation now disappointing thousands, made him appear as a martyr, and thus probably hard to beat.
"Ambition" reports that though seven million jobs had been lost since V-J Day, only 1.7 million applications had been received for unemployment compensation, tending to undermine the claim that the recipients were a shiftless lot trying to take money from the Government while not trying to obtain work. Indeed, over a third of those who had filed, found work before receiving any compensation.
While the maximum weekly unemployment payment in North Carolina was $20, less than 10 percent qualified for that level, most receiving far less. Furthermore, it was considered a demeaning situation by most to have to rely on the payments.
One of the purposes of the compensation was to prevent out of work individuals from having to accept undesirable employment and so it should be no complaint that some did just that until the right job appeared.
The piece concludes that good workmen would not lose their ambition by having a guarantee against starvation.
"Fashion Plates" remarks on a recent photograph appearing in the newspaper of two cotton picking champions who were snapped while doing what they did best, in a cotton field near Blytheville, Arkansas. The photo was remarkable, says the piece, for the fact that both were white and attired in fashionable dress, not the stereotypical cotton pickers in the usual cotton-picking outfits.
The piece finds it worthy of comment because now the times were so out of joint that cotton pickers appeared as Country Clubbers while "the young ladies at exclusive boarding schools wear blue denim pants."
The photo, unfortunately, we do not have. But, maybe we can obtain a rough semblance of it here
The excerpt from the Congressional Record has Senator Kenneth McKellar, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of providing the franchise to women, recalling the proceedings leading up to ratification of the Constitutional amendment by the vote of the Tennessee Legislature, passed by a single vote, a Republican, Harry Burn, albeit with the rest of the majority being predominantly Democrats.
Senator McKellar states that, though he had never married, he had the profoundest respect for women and had always supported their right to vote.
Drew Pearson reports that Congressman Charles LaFollette of Indiana, a Republican, was the most vigorous supporter of the President's proposed full employment bill, while Democrats on the Expenditures Committee stood adamantly opposed, some even comparing it to the Soviet Constitution. The bill, as it was presently written, had little chance to emerge from the committee.
He next reports that, despite dealers wanting rationing of automobiles, OPA had determined not to ration them. Lists were so long that it would take up to four years to fulfill demand, with $200 being required to put one's name on the waiting list.
In a recent White House meeting of top economic advisers in the Administration, Chester Bowles, head of OPA, Fred Vinson, Secretary of the Treasury, and Henry Wallace, Secretary of Commerce, had favored what had become the policy enunciated by the President to Congress, the proposal for wage increases and holding the line on prices, with some exceptions made for demonstrated hardship. Others, such as Navy Secretary James Forrestal, had favored raising prices to enable higher profits.
Next, the column informs of the efforts of Michigan Congressmen to have their picture taken with the new Ford model in front of the Capitol. An appeal to allow it, however, was turned down by Speaker Sam Rayburn on the ground that it would open the floodgates to commercialization of the Capitol, turning the Capitol steps into a marketplace. Eventually, the Congressmen had the picture taken between the old and new House Office Buildings.
Finally, he tells of concessions won on the atomic energy bill in committee by Congressmen Chet Holifield of California and John Sparkman of Alabama, future vice-presidential candidate in 1952 with Adlai Stevenson. Their amendments had provided more control by the President and Congress over the proposed Atomic Energy Commission, provided for seven salaried members rather nine dollar-per-year men from industry, and limited the ability of big business to have a monopoly on atomic energy. The upshot was to provide emphasis to use of atomic energy only for peaceful purposes. The Army had opposed the amendments.
The new bill likely to emerge therefore from the House would be an improvement over the original version, and would provide foundation on which the McMahon Committee in the Senate could build a better atomic energy policy.
Marquis Childs reports that President Truman was hurt and indignant at the report that John W. Snyder, director of the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion, might quit his post. His job was far from complete and he finally had agreed to stay on until it was done. He was working long days seven days a week to finish it.
President Truman was following a different style of government from that of his predecessor. He delegated far more authority than he retained, sought a departure from the one-man government style of FDR.
Ironically, some of the observers who had been most critical of FDR desired a return to the one-man style. Centralization of the economy had become an established fact in Washington and President Truman was seeking to decentralize it, finding, however, the going difficult.
A letter writer favors a master plan be set forth by the Charlotte Planning Commission for the ensuing half century. Without it, he suggests, the city would simply grow willy-nilly as it had in the previous 50 years, without any overall plan. He remarks that Toledo, Ohio, for instance, had adopted such a plan.
Another letter writer favors construction of a new auditorium, that the existing Armory was wholly inadequate for community events. "The
A third letter posits that before the other listed civic improvements on the newspaper's ballot, as it had appeared on the front page the prior week, such things as improvement of the black areas of the city should take priority.
Another letter writer finds the concept, which he says many clergymen had adopted, that all of mankind somehow had been responsible for the war and thus the blame would need be apportioned among them, to run contrary to Christian principles and tended to excuse those guilty of the war crimes. It was not the case that because someone had been wronged they had sinned and thus merited the wrong done them.
He quotes a paragraph from Bishop Kenneth Pfohl appearing in a piece by Dr. Herbert Spaugh in The News of October 22, which had, he believes, adopted this fallacious reasoning:
