Thursday, May 24, 1945

The Charlotte News

Thursday, May 24, 1945

FIVE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Heinrich Himmler, having been arrested three days earlier by the British Second Army, had committed suicide by ingesting cyanide while undergoing a medical examination. The 44-year old Gestapo head was stopped at a bridge at Bremervorde while using the alias "Hizinger". He was clean shaven, wearing an eyepatch and civilian clothes, but his papers appeared to the two British soldiers too well in order and they detained him. Eventually, he was recognized and arrested along with two accompanying SS guards. He had retained the poison in his mouth without discovery for the three days of imprisonment.

More than 550 B-29's attacked Tokyo in a record raid shortly after midnight under a clear sky with a bright moon, dropping 4,500 tons of incendiary bombs, after which the city burned for five and a half hours. The raid was the equivalent of a 2,000 plane raid by regular American heavy bombers, B-17's or B-24's. The fires were visible by air for 200 miles, according to the blister gunner aboard the "Santa Monica" on its return trip to the Marianas. Direct hits were reported by Americans on railyards serving a third of Japan's rail traffic. Prime target was the Shinagawa industrial area. The raid came exactly six months after the first raid on Tokyo, November 24.

On Okinawa, the 77th Division of the Tenth Army held Shuri fortress in a pincer grip with the 96th Division as close quarters fighting extended all along the battle line. Gains were extended by the Seventh Division below Yonabaru as other forces gained in Yonabaru, and patrols of the Sixth Division's Fourth Marine Regiment entered Naha and advanced as much as 800 yards after wading across the Asato River in a pre-dawn surprise attack. It was expected that house to house fighting in Naha would soon begin.

The Allied navies were searching for 12 to 15 "pirate subs" of the Reichsmarine which had not thus far surrendered. Some 45 U-boats had given up at British, American, and Canadian ports, while another 200 had surrendered at other Allied-controlled ports or had been scuttled. It was believed that some of the U-boats were commanded by fanatics who would seek to reach Japan, some of the craft being able to stay at sea for as long as six weeks.

President Truman announced the appointment of assistant attorney general Tom C. Clark of Dallas to succeed Francis Biddle as Attorney General. Mr. Clark would be appointed in 1949 by President Truman to the Supreme Court where he would serve until 1967. His son, Ramsey Clark, subsequently served as Attorney General under President Johnson.

Other new Cabinet appointees were Federal Judge Lewis Schwellenbach of Washington State to replace Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins who had wanted to resign since 1941, and Representative Clinton Anderson of New Mexico as Secretary of Agriculture to replace Claude Wickard. Mr. Wickard was appointed Rural Electrification Administrator to fill the vacancy in that position after President Roosevelt's nominee, Aubrey Williams, had been declined for confirmation by the Senate.

Washington observers found the appointments to be more representative of geographical diversity than President Roosevelt's appointments, centered in the East. They remained tinged with liberality but pleased both the New Dealers and the conservative faction in Texas.

The President asked Congress for authority to reorganize the Executive Branch to make it more efficient, that it needed an overhaul to make it properly responsive to peacetime conditions. Many of the agencies set up under the 1941 War Powers Act would become automatically abolished six months following the war when the Act expired. President Roosevelt had undertaken reorganization in 1939 and 1940.

The President would fly to San Francisco to address the concluding session of the conference, to be held at the Opera House. He might also, the report indicated, take a few days of rest at Olympia, Washington, perhaps at the suggestion of Justice William O. Douglas. The trip was yet four weeks away.

The Government announced a 50 percent increase in regular rationing for gasoline, beginning June 22. Thus, A ration coupons would serve to purchase three gallons per week instead of the current two.

Senator Robert Wagner of New York and Representative John Dingell of Michigan introduced a bill to Congress greatly to expand Social Security and provide for health insurance. Under the health insurance portion, every citizen would be entitled to insurance similar to the voluntary hospital insurance plans, would be able to choose their own doctor, and none of the current plans would be affected. Senator Wagner stated that it was not socialized medicine.

The bill also called for 950 million dollars to be appropriated for building of hospitals and health centers across the country in aid of the states under a ten-year program. Social Security would be extended to include fifteen million additional persons under the proposals.

What date was that? A couple of years ago or so?

On the editorial page, "Community Asset" praises the City Manager and other functionaries in the City and County Governments as being efficient and not professional politicians.

"Dixie Champion" predicts that future economic analysts of Southern progress would give praise to W. S. Crieghton for his contributions to industrial development in the region, which the piece predicts would begin to take hold circa 1950. It had been Mr. Creighton who had a large role in getting the Interstate Commerce Commission to eliminate discriminatory freight rates.

"Ah, Chickens!" comments on the shortage of chickens being equal to that of steaks, that the fact had been obvious for some time to housewives. But, to the State extension agent who had come to the county to examine the poultry situation, everything appeared just fine and, he said, there was a good prospect for plenty of chickens in the coming year.

The piece wonders who was kidding who.

Maybe it was the chicken agent.

"New Cotton Week" reviews the Department of Agriculture's five-year plan for streamlining cotton production so that Government subsidies could end. The plan called for gradual reduction of the payments over five years with a ten-year adjustment period for marginal cotton farmers so that they might make a transition to other crops.

The change smacked to farmers of socialism, but the end result promised remedy for an industry rife with poverty and a program to get the Government out of the cotton business.

"We're Suckers" remarks on the story in Yank by Sgt. Dan Polier, who reported from Italy that Americans were paying as liberators in Bologna far more than had the German occupiers for such things as wine, 150% higher for the Americans, eggs, 100% higher, and shacks for which the Germans paid $2 selling to Americans for $25.

The excerpt from the Congressional Record has Congressman John Folger of North Carolina advocating the proposed amendment to the Constitution to eliminate the two-thirds Senate majority rule for approval of treaties and replace it with a majority rule for both houses, thus to give the people more representative input to formulation of the peace which so impacted their lives.

Drew Pearson addresses the new Russian suspicion of the West in the wake of President's Roosevelt's death. Stalin had traditionally disliked and distrusted Churchill, did not know Truman, but it was generally believed by the Russians that the new President was largely under the spell of his anti-Russian State Department.

The British had developed their sphere of influence in Greece, Belgium, and Italy with the blessings of the United States, as Russia was developing its sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. President Roosevelt at Casablanca in January, 1943 had provided the approval for Britain's influence over the Mediterranean and Near East, that all Lend-Lease was to be distributed by the British in these areas, and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration workers were to be under the direction of the British. Roosevelt was determined to avoid the pitfalls of American oversight of Europe, based on the adverse experience of President Wilson at the end of World War I.

But after the debacle of Greece, Belgium, and Italy under British oversight, the President had gone to Yalta in January determined that the United States would play its role in insuring the Four Freedoms promised by the Atlantic Charter. While conceived to limit the British, its effect primarily was on the Russians, who were at the time just beginning their moves into Poland, Austria, and the Balkans.

With Roosevelt now gone, the Russians were left with no one in the West in whom securely to place their trust. The governments they had set up in Austria and Yugoslavia were considered, for the most part, by State Department officials to be democratic and representative. So, the fact that they had failed to consult, per Yalta, with the British and Americans was more a complaint of form than substance. But, ventures Mr. Pearson, one could understand, with the shabby past of the State Department in the situations of Italy and Greece, and the complete debacle in 1942 in North Africa, why Russia would be disinclined first to consult with the State Department and the British Foreign Ministry.

Assistant Secretaries of State James Dunn and Brig. General Julius Holmes had been primarily responsible in 1942 for bringing Marcel Peyrouton from Argentina to North Africa, despite the fact that he had been the first to begin concentration camps for union workers and Jews in Vichy France under Marshal Petain.

Likewise in Italy, Mr. Dunn had acceded to the wishes of the British that they be allowed to make political decisions during occupation. The result had been that King Victor Emmanuel and Crown Prince Umberto had maintained key roles despite their being thoroughly despised by most Italians, while Count Sforza, a democrat, was left out of the Cabinet, denied the post of Foreign Minister, on the veto of the British.

The Russians now saw Mr. Dunn and General Holmes in high State Department positions, breeding further their distrust.

Marquis Childs discusses a recent speech at Cornell by Governor Thomas Dewey, stating that peace could not long endure were there to be indefinitely hungry masses in Europe as well as at home. A third of the prospective draftees in America were undernourished when the Army examined them and rejected them. Where nourishment was good, Army acceptability was high, and vice versa.

In the coming year, the problem would be dividing the food so that there would be enough for home consumption while feeding the masses in Europe.

There was need for a food administrator to coordinate the system of distribution. Thus far, there had been a great deal of confusion and buck-passing.

President Truman new Secretary of Agriculture, Clinton Anderson, was to become the food czar. (For isolationist Republicans, that means you will be dictated to by a Russian in what you may eat. Socialism is coming. Beware.)

Dorothy Thompson, in Milan, writes of the relative quiet in Northern Italy since April 30. Between April 25 and 30, 782 Fascists were summarily executed. But after the Allies entered, new courts were set up to replace the kangaroo courts of the Partisans. The new courts were designed to move swiftly, with appeals to be completed within ten days and all of the judges selected by the anti-Fascist parties. Still, these courts were deemed too slow by the Partisans who were accusing the Allies, especially the British, of protecting Fascist leaders.

The Communists were a major influence in the north and represented 40% of the Partisans. Catholics also were a major contingent.

The Allies had disarmed the Partisans except for about a thousand who remained on the police force.

There was great concern regarding the Tito Government in Yugoslavia, which represented no more than 10% of Yugoslavia but held an iron grip on power. But the Communists in northern Italy stood by Tito and so, despite concern for loss of territory, matters were quiescent at the moment.

Samuel Grafton finds it disturbing that the Russians had a foreign policy with respect to Europe and America and Britain did not. Many in the west wanted Europe just to blow away. But that was no policy. The Soviets, meanwhile, were busy cultivating a series of Eastern European satellites, in Poland, the Baltic States, and the Balkans.

While Americans were fond of saying that they wanted a free and independent Europe, they gave support to Franco in Spain.

President Roosevelt had a plan for Europe, based on lowered tariffs and an international monetary fund to stabilize currencies and increase trade. But most of the conservative opinion in the country was opposed to this program.

Americans were concerned about Russia's aggressive tendencies in Eastern Europe but had ventured no plan for America. If America were busy ridding Spain of Franco and trying Nazi war criminals, it would feel better about the Russian competition. But doing nothing left a dispirited sense in the people.

From the Florida Times Union was printed a little squib with shades of the former "Visitin' Around" column which once appeared regularly on the page. Appearing under the heading "Howzat, Now?" it relates: "Jean Turner, Miami Andrew Jackson High School, survived the spelling contest by nosing out Ray Barnett of the same school in correctly spelling the word 'wierd.'"

A short piece from Reader's Digest remarks on Time taking its metaphorical and portmanteau tendencies from Homer's penchant for same in such vividelicious expressions as the "wine-dark sea" or "far-darting Apollo". Co-founder of Time Briton Hadden had underscored every one of the compoundefiers in his corner-bent copy of The Iliad and thus apparently developed the Time stylerific from that Trojaniphonic source, such wordicons as sophomoron, radiorator, sexpert, franchiseler, dramateurs, microphonies, cinemansion, ballyhooligan, AAAdministrator, and, one for 2011-12, GOPossibility.

We were going somehow to work in Lupercalpurnia or, as alternative thereto, metaphoricalpurnia and portmanteautemic, or remember the portmainteau, perhaps even bruted portiamaniacalpurniacially, but somehow it broke the rhythm and so we left those on the rheumatism's cut-kill-purse-pig floor with the goats.

And, don't forget that there is a sale on white plastique handbags down at Ivey's. Give the "fem inine gift" to the lady in your life, only $15. As they say, a little plastique in exchange for the old bag goes a long way.

Let us see these pockets...

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