Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that North Carolina Congressman Joe Ervin, representing Mecklenburg County, had committed suicide by means of gas on Christmas Day at his home in Washington. Congressman Ervin, who had taken his seat the previous January, was found in the kitchen of his apartment with a pistol and straight-edge razor in his hand, with the gas on from the stove. The radio was playing softly. He left a note on the front porch, warning of the gas, knowing that his friend, assistant attorney general Lamar Caudle, would be calling to take him to Christmas dinner. He also left notes for his wife and siblings, including Judge Sam J. Ervin. The contents were not disclosed.

Congressman Ervin, 44, a lawyer for fifteen years and graduate of the University of North Carolina as an undergraduate and the law school, had just been released from Walter Reed Army Hospital after suffering a fall outside his residence, re-injuring a leg which had already undergone five operations for osteomyelitis. His fall had prevented him from returning home to Morganton to be with his family at Christmas. Mr. Caudle stated that he had seen Congressman Ervin on Christmas Eve and he appeared in good spirits.

The funeral would be held in Morganton the following day.

Governor Gregg Cherry announced that a special election would soon be held to fill the seat, with some suggesting that Mrs. Ervin be elected. Sam Ervin would become the choice and would serve out the remaining year of the term and not seek re-election. Sam Ervin would, after becoming Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, be appointed to fill the unexpired term of Senator Clyde R. Hoey of Shelby in 1954 upon the death of the latter. He was prompted at the time to quip, in reference to the Senate seniority system, that "serving in the Senate is waiting for dead men's shoes".

Initial reports had it that former Senator Robert Rice Reynolds had committed suicide.

In Moscow, the foreign ministers conference was reported in its last stages, scheduled to end the following day. While no specific details had yet been released, it was indicated that the conference had resulted in convivial relations between the Big Three foreign ministers and was concluding several agreements, in contrast to the failed London conference in September.

In Detroit and Flint, pickets returned to the picket lines after taking off Christmas. The strikers allowed 2,000 to 3,000 office workers to cross the picket lines at Fisher Body, A.C. Spark Plug, and Chevrolet, but prevented access at Buick where there were more gates to cover.

The Navy announced that its authority over the Coast Guard would be turned back to the Treasury Department, its normal home in peacetime.

Off Wilmington, N.C., a search was being conducted by the Coast Guard for a lost two-masted schooner, the Valmore, after it had been cut loose from its tow line by the skipper of a shrimper, the Dunworkin, towing the schooner to Florida. During heavy seas off Frying Pan Shoals, the Dunworkin lost power to one of its engines. Then, when the boat went in search of the severed schooner, it lost its second engine and track of the schooner. The Dunworkin was done workin'.

Across the country, 414 people died during the Christmas holiday, 219 of whom from automobile accidents, and 127 from "violence", including shootings, freezing, a tornado, train and airplane wrecks, and accidents in the home.

The heaviest toll was suffered in Hartford, Conn., where 17 people perished in a fire. Six others died in Meriden, Conn., in a home fire.

In Pineville, Ky., 30 to 35 miners were trapped in a collapsed mine shaft following an explosion.

Lt. Gerard would likely pull them out.

In Santa Barbara, California, the explosion of a butane gas truck killed three people and injured five others, with one missing. The driver of the truck reported that as he turned the key to the ignition, the truck exploded.

Perhaps, it was a rival company to the Corleone holdings.

The President was in good spirits on his visit home, making the rounds at Kansas City to greet old friends, and then spending the day with family in Independence.

The Empty Stocking Fund added a few more dollars to bring the total to $7,038.53, a record. One man, who received a check from the fund, returned it with a nice note saying that he could not accept it as he had no children and there were more deserving recipients.

On the editorial page, "Joe Ervin" comments on the "strange, untimely death" of Congressman Ervin, lauding him for a job well done during his year in Congress, with every prospect of being re-elected. His colleagues considered him a diligent worker and the people of the state admired him for his service, providing ready access to constituents from his office in Charlotte when in the state.

"A Lonely Christmas" compares the foreign ministers, Secretary of State Byrnes, Foreign Secretary Bevin, and Foreign Commissar Molotov, to the three wise men, coming to the East in Moscow to seek a better world.

It contemplates, however, that he must have heard lines of "O Little Town of Bethlehem" weighing upon him.

"Out of the Groves" comments on the nuclear scientists coming forth from their laboratories to make speeches, testify before Congress, and write letters to the editor, defying the image of academics being cloistered in the campestral university environment.

A piece from the Asheville Citizen, titled "A Child and Society", comments favorably on Governor Cherry's commutation of the death sentence entered against a 15-year old black defendant in New Hanover County, a subject covered by a piece from the Winston-Salem Journal, reprinted on Friday. The Governor stated that guilt for the deeds of the youth fell in part on the citizenry for failing to correct neglectful conditions in society for the under-privileged.

The State, it asserts, could not execute a child, but it could keep him imprisoned for life. It asks what could be done to prevent future recurrences.

Drew Pearson reprises his zeal for putting Christianity into the peace, reminding that he was a Quaker. He instructs that Jesus did not stay in one place but fought hard during his life for peace on earth, becoming an itinerant missionary for the idea. Mr. Pearson favors Americans doing likewise.

Marquis Childs favors new leadership for the Republican Party as a Christmas gift to the nation. In ordinary times, the parties could go along as Tweedledum and Tweedledee, but these were not ordinary times, and two viable parties were necessary to work through the issues.

Samuel Grafton discusses the last minute extension by Congress for six months of the President's power to establish priorities on materials, being used to divert lumber to the construction of low-cost homes to alleviate the post-war housing shortage. The President had sought a year extension but Senator Robert Taft of Ohio had led the fight to limit it to six months, with a promise that in April or May, the Congress would examine reconversion anew and determine whether another extension would be required.

The legislators were sitting around waiting for a crisis which everyone knew was coming, "and a number of our legislators may make unconvincing figures when they come running into the arena on that morning, bidding us to make some hasty stab in the dark at our problems because, puff, puff, we are short of time. It does not promote domestic tranquility, or improve internal tone, to see such an elaborate build-up for the quite simple business of missing a bus."

A piece from the Saturday Review of Literature, titled "To Fit the Crime", discusses the treason of Ezra Pound for his broadcasts during the war in Italy against the Allies and in favor of Fascism, as being the product of an unstable mind. As a poet, when he was responsible, he deserved no less than death. But as a second-rate political spokesman, his lack of responsibility showed him unworthy of such a sentence.

Louis Untermeyer had suggested that he be given life imprisonment, locked in a cell with the poetry of Edgar Guest, a fate which Mr. Pound would likely refuse for death.

Whatever the punishment, the piece concludes, it should fit the crime—perhaps, sublimey, for the blandishments heaped onto his sheaf become nude.

Dorothy Thompson comments on the spendthrift Christmas just had in the United States while people starved in Europe. It did not adhere to the spirit and meaning of Christmas.

She comments that as the Roman Empire fell after the death of Christ, Christians promised eternal life and security in the community of love and faith. The Christians saved from the Dark Ages that which was salvageable and brought the world into the age of Christendom where there were no nations, lasting until the Plague and the Reformation which split the Church asunder—forming, if you will, two L7 squares to supplant the Trinity. (Keep yer hair-shirt on; it's just an allusion.)

Through it all, the Image of Christ had sustained their faith, as it must do in the present world, she advises. Hitler had to indoctrinate the Nazi youth to despise the Image so that it would not temper their zeal for their task of conquering the world while exterminating Jews.

The Kremlin had written on its face: "Religion is the opiate of the people." But, when under attack from Germany, the material creed had failed them and they had to turn again to faith and hope.

It had been a strange Christmas where, in Europe, thousands had been brought into the world in stables and rude surroundings, while in America—presumably in her figure the rough equivalent to the Roman Empire—shopped at brightly lit stores strung with tinsel and evergreen.

But the Image remained, holding out its hope and promise of brotherhood, a concept subject to realization only by man.

Dorman Smith makes a pretty good stab at how the future of China would look "Along About 1975". Of course, it would only be another four years before the condition would prove itself.

Such was the news, oh boy, this Boxing Day, 1945, the Second Day of Christmas.

Did we ever tell you about the time, on our way back from Mexico, many, many years ago, when we got stopped and ticketed in Texas for being over the nighttime speed limit by thirty minutes, causing us, in North Carolina's time, to lose our license for thirty days, automatically, by dint of that single ticket? Oh, that's right, we did...

It didn't matter much though, in the end. For it snowed knee deep and everybody had to walk miles and miles to fend, that wide awake winter's December morn, we remember, when or about the time Ford was sworn, and we took our New Deal to the present examination, amid ice-enshrouded pine timbre, and the greyed chill air of a ghostly imagination.