Saturday, November 24, 1945

The Charlotte News

Saturday, November 24, 1945

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the Federal Government was seeking to end the strike by UAW workers at G.M. through conciliation, following the rejection by G.M. of the UAW proposal to have a three-person arbitration panel, calling it a ruse to induce G.M. to give up the management of its business.

In China, Nationalist troops had surrounded Chinhsien, a hundred miles inside Manchuria, while the Communist press demanded autonomy for Manchuria. Some sources said that Chinhsien had already been occupied by the Nationalists. The Red press claimed that 200,000 Communist troops had massed in Manchuria with more to follow.

In Java, fighting again erupted in Sematang and Ambarawa between British Indian troops and Indonesians. In Ambarawa, Indonesians were said to have invaded the internment camp and killed women and children. A British officer reported that Dutch and Amboinese troops had shot 60 Indonesian police officers in cold blood in Batavia. Batavia, however had been relatively quiet in the previous 48 hours.

The joint Congressional committee investigating Pearl Harbor was presented with a letter which had been written November 30, 1941 by Winston Churchill to FDR asking that the President consider issuing a statement to the Japanese that any further aggression would have the gravest consequences. Mr. Churchill, not privy to the diplomatic talks in Washington with the Japanese, thought at the time that it might have an impact.

The Nuremberg war crimes tribunal stood in recess for the weekend as defense counsel stated that the majority of the defendants would testify in their own behalf.

In the 42nd and final installment of the series by General Jonathan Wainwright on the fall of Bataan and Corregidor and the ensuing internment of the men who fought a delaying action until May 8, 1942 on Corregidor, he tells of arriving in Yokohama on August 31, 1945 after release from captivity. There he met General MacArthur for the first time since March 10, 1942, when the former commander of the Philippine forces had departed for Australia.

He recounts having witnessed the surrender of the Japanese onboard the U.S.S. Missouri on September 2. He was greeted by his old War College classmate, Admiral William Halsey, whom General Wainwright had not seen since the 1930's.

When the actual signing took place, General MacArthur handed the first pen with which he signed to General Wainwright.

He was later informed that the destroyer Wainwright, named for his grandfather, Jonathan M. Wainwright, had survived the war. His grandfather had graduated from the first class of the Naval Academy in 1840, and been killed January 1, 1863 during the Civil War while commanding the Harriet Lane in Galveston Harbor.

Both his uncle and father had also served with distinction in the armed services. His son was a commander in the Merchant Marine. General MacArthur sent a message to the commander of the Merchant Marine recommending that the younger Wainwright be granted leave to come to Washington to reunite with his father.

When General Wainwright returned to Washington, he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by President Truman. The long ordeal of nearly three and a half years had ended.

An American Airlines plane making the initial trans-Atlantic commerical flight from Washington to London had to divert to Shannon, Ireland after approaches to London airports were prevented by dense fog.

Dick Young of The News tells of a ten-year old child who had appeared at the police station seeking a search warrant for her mother who had disappeared on Tuesday with a man, the child stating that the man had forced her to go with him. The police chief told her that she did not need a search warrant but that the police would do all they could to locate her mother. Meantime, he arranged for the child and her brother to stay with relatives in Gaffney, S.C. It was a typical day at the Police Department.

In Wilmington, the authorities were hunting for two parakeets which were believed to be carrying parrot fever, a disease communicable to man. The parakeets had been bought by three persons.

The person infected with psittacosis was said to twist his or her head in sudden, jerky movements and remark repeatedly, "Polly wish a cracker."

Charlotte weather had turned cold, with morning temperature hitting 20 degrees and a mean of 36, twelve degrees below normal for the date.

We hope it is thusly cold tomorrow in Chapel Hill so that the track can accommodate some young men arriving home from Bloomington, Indiana. For it is time for some laps. We reckon 24 to be a nice round number.

Else, come spring...

On the editorial page, "Only Another Weapon" comments on the statement by Justice Robert Jackson during his opening statement at the Nuremberg trials that statesmen must be accountable to law. The facts thus far adduced appeared to show a gang of ruthless individuals out for their own ends of self-enrichment, using racial superiority theories only as a means to attract the masses to their cause. In truth, the herrenvolk had been held in contempt by the Nazi hierarchy.

The piece suggests that men of the type existed amply in America, and the Nuremberg tribunal was thus wise to seek destruction of the thought pattern—or, more appropriately put, punishment as deterrent to repetition of the scheme in which those who systematically programmed, through strategically applied violence and other simple Pavlovian technique, a mass culture for the advancement of a few, with the carefully selected scapegoat, the Jew, as the ritual sacrifice to satiate the appeal to the primitive desire to feel superior to some Other as means to supplant a severely damaged collective identity and ego ensuing World War I, to overcome value judgment, inevitably inherent in civilized man, utilizing the tool of surrender of individual conscience to a single superego, Hitler, posed as a demi-god to the masses. So, from this process, there inevitably had been millions accepting of the Nazi ideology for their like self-aggrandizement, beyond the reach of the law. Many of them were not Germans as such an appeal knew no boundaries.

"It is the eternal refuge of men of little faith, all who grow impatient with the inefficiencies of democracy and the fumbling progress of free men, all who believe that mankind will destroy itself unless its course is charted by a superior few."

It would be a mistake to believe that the Nazi ideology could be forever crushed at Nuremberg. Its genesis came long before the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich in 1923. Even if the trial resulted in a binding body of international law, it would act as no more than a tool by which such malefactors might in the future be brought to justice. The extent of its deterrent would be determined only by time.

"You Can't Spend Glory" remarks on a piece in Collier's by Jonathan Daniels, editor of the Raleigh News and Observer, having recently returned from service in Washington as an adviser to President Roosevelt and then ever so briefly as press secretary prior to the President's death in April.

The subject of the piece was the low salaries paid to elected representatives in Washington. President Truman received $75,000, reduced to $46,000 after taxes, but could not break even in the job for fixed expenses in the White House being $25,000. In the end, the President was left with $3,000 on which to feed his family and pay the expenses of unofficial entertainment and other personal expenses.

The Congress was in even worse shape, with salaries of $10,000 per year. Cabinet members received $15,000.

While it was popular to criticize public servants as feeders at the public trough, the truth was that most of the honest politicians died broke unless their fortunes preceded public service. The result was that the best qualified for public service often declined, leaving to fill the void the independently wealthy, those who were not qualified, those who wanted glory, and those out to build a reputation to obtain wealth later in the private sector.

It would be better to pay more and receive better service.

"The Wainwright Story" comments on the 42 installments of the saga of General Jonathan Wainwright, just completed this date, the longest serial ever published by The News. The organ had come to it with some reservation for its length and age as a story. It says that other newspapers carrying the series had buried it on the inside of the paper after the first few days while The News maintained it throughout on the front page, depriving space for other, more current stories.

The editorial explains its rationale, that the fighting men who participated in America's first surrender had a timeless quality and that it should never escape memory that there was great sacrifice to achieve ultimate victory in the war.

The particular story, it felt, embraced hope for the future for the absence of any trace of bitterness in General Wainwright's account. He had never lost his faith in his country during the course of his brutal captivity.

The country at this time, in building the future world, had to justify the same sort of faith which sustained General Wainwright.

A piece from the Winston-Salem Journal, titled "Let's Bid for It Too!", suggests that since at least twenty American cities were seeking to become the locus for the new United Nations Organization, including Poughkeepsie and Saratoga Springs in New York, Atlantic City, and the Black Hills section of South Dakota—where Rocky regularly read Gideon's Bible below Mount Rushmore—then the "Land of the Sky" of North Carolina, either in its piedmont or in its western hills, would provide for the delegates of the U.N. an idyllic setting in which to gather, outside the bright city lights.

"Marshall McLuhan", from May 13, 1944, is now here.

Drew Pearson discusses a plan for resolving the labor-management impasse on wage increases introduced by Senator William Knowland of California, appointed to succeed Hiram Johnson following his recent death. His proposal was that wages be adjusted once per year based on the earning power of business after business and labor would estimate the coming year's profits, then agree in collective bargaining on the most equitable distribution of wages, stock dividends, and adjustments to prices. It would require that business make public its books, heretofore a practice not followed by big business.

Many in Congress had gone on record supporting the plan, asserting that companies such as G.M. and U.S. Steel were essentially public utilities, affecting the economic fabric of the country, and thus ought to disclose their books.

To enable government study of the wage problem, Mr. Pearson favors a revival of a committee such as TNEC, a joint committee of Congress which had studied the impact of monopolies and the economics of the country generally.

He next reports of Representative Clair Boothe Luce having been cornered by the wife of the president of Riggs National Bank, Mrs. Robert Fleming, at a soiree given by Chip Robert in Washington. Ms. Fleming had said to Ms. Luce that members of Congress came to the District of Columbia, took advantage of the many perquisites, such as lower taxes and plentiful parks, but never looked after the concerns of the District. Ms. Luce appeared restless but Ms. Fleming pressed her point further until Ms. Luce walked away.

Unfortunately, Ms. Luce could never understand that being a supercilious moron in private life, who thought she was daily nominated to be Queen for a Day, did not appear attractive in her role as a public servant.

He next discusses a proposal of Congressman Steve Pace of Georgia to add increased farm labor costs to the farm parity prices, a move which would raise by 20 percent the average cost of living. Because of its inflationary impact, it had been passed over in the Agriculture Committee, though passed in each of the last three Houses, only to die in the Senate.

Next the column informs of Franklin Roosevelt, Jr., having joined a law firm in New York, making efforts to relieve the housing shortage faced by returning veterans. He had been critical of Mayor La Guardia for not doing enough in that regard.

The Republicans of Kentucky thought 269-pound Ed Pritchard a smart political organizer but did not like the fact that he was trying to woo factionalized Democrats, for it meant Republicans could win.

The Navy was paying civilian labor at Richmond, Fla., $2.31 per hour to remove hurricane debris, a boondoggle, says Mr. Pearson.

Marquis Childs comments on the Pearl Harbor investigation, wondering whether Congress by the end of the inquiry would know how to prevent such an event in the future, Mr. Childs finding it doubtful.

While the American people were clearly not informed enough of the dangers in 1940-41, it was a difficult time for truth-telling, given the rhetoric of the isolationists, that America was safe, while voting down shortly before the attack all measures aimed at preparedness, including extension of the draft, first imposed in fall, 1940—the same voices now being heard to condemn President Roosevelt for not preventing the war.

Nevertheless, asserts Mr. Childs, one of the President's great weaknesses had been not taking into his confidence the American people in spring, 1941 when he had given his May 27 fireside chat. Mr. Childs remembers it as containing "a very high content of easy assurance and a very low content of facts on the perilous situation the country confronted."

But in fact, the President had declared a national emergency and went to great lengths to inform of the peril facing the country, sounding as if war might come within the ensuing few weeks. That the bulk of the country yawned and went about their business could not be blamed on the President.

Mr. Childs goes on to remark that the Administration appeared to repeat the same mistake by keeping the American public uninformed on the trade negotiations ongoing between the U.S. and Great Britain. A long term loan of three to four billion dollars with two percent interest had been proposed by the U.S. But negotiators on both sides were concerned that once the plan would be made public, a firestorm would be set off which would potentially harm U.S.-British relations. A trade war could result, such as in the Thirties.

Should it occur, the primary reason, he asserts, would be because the public had not been made aware of the importance of re-establishing international trade in the post-war world. It was the real lesson of Pearl Harbor, something being overlooked in the Congressional investigation, seeking instead merely to fix blame. If the attitude persisted, another Pearl Harbor could very well be down the road.

Samuel Grafton likewise indicates that the isolationists were making a grave mistake in trying to smear the reputation posthumously of President Roosevelt with the Congressional investigation into Pearl Harbor, seeking alternatively and paradoxically to imply that the President deliberately allowed the attack to occur to get the country into the war or that he was completely unprepared for the attack when it occurred. It had been argued that he should not have sent the Fleet to Pearl Harbor from the West Coast as it angered the Japanese; it had also been argued, however, that he should have pulled all the ships out of service in the Atlantic and sent them to the Pacific; it had further been argued that the Fleet should have been moved to the West Coast and placed on a war footing. It was being asserted that the President should have scared the Japanese less and that he should have scared them more.

But in 1941, the isolationists were saying that there would be no war with Japan and would have decried any attempt by Roosevelt to equip any ship as a man o' war.

"Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble. And when they grow tired of double-talk about Mr. R., they go on to double-talk about poor Cordell Hull who (a) let the Japanese buy millions of dollars worth of oil and scrap steel in this country before the war, because he was fearful of precipitating conflict by an embargo, and who (b) is accused of having provoked war by one diplomatic note after years of following this conciliatory and cautious policy."

He predicts that Pearl Harborism would become a science akin to botany and would be studied for years into the future. The problems of Pearl Harbor had derived from a divided country on the war, confusion which had persisted even after the war.

He wonders why the isolationists in Congress and in the press were attempting to smear the reputation of the man who had achieved victory over the fascists of the world. It all led to the belief that the Pearl Harbor investigation in Congress might become the Pearl Harbor of the next war.

A letter to the editor from a Marine at Camp Lejeune states that the editorial titled "A Touch of Baptist Bigotry", appearing November 17, should have been titled "A Touch of Southern Bigotry". On the one hand the editorial column had condoned the North Carolina Baptists in their position that the Ambassador to the Vatican should be called home with the end of the war, to preserve separation of Church and State. On the other, it had condemned the Texas Baptists for their resolution to halt the conferring by Baylor of an honorary degree on the President because of his occasional playing of poker and occasional tippling of bourbon. While agreeing with the latter position, the author found the former position to be Southern bigotry on the part of the newspaper.

The editors defend their position anent the Ambassador to the Vatican because there was no similar recognition provided any other religious sect, that its position represented the type of democracy which another Southerner, Thomas Jefferson, had in mind.

Another letter writer, a student at Queens College in Charlotte, a member of Alpha Delta Pi sorority, writes that an item in the newspaper had it wrong, that Kappa Alpha Theta, founded in 1870 at Depauw University, was not in fact the oldest Greek-letter sorority, but rather A. D. Pi, founded at Wesleyan College in Macon, Ga., in 1851, held the prize.

The editors thank the sorority sister for her astuteness in reading even the fillers of the newspaper and wish both sororities the best. "Everybody happy?" they inquire.

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