The Charlotte News
Wednesday, July 25, 1945
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that shortly after midnight, between 75 and 100 B-29's had struck three oil refineries at Kawasaki on Tokyo Bay, ten miles from the capital.
For the second straight day, carrier planes of the Third Fleet hit the Kure Naval base. Fifteen cruisers and destroyers moved inland, hitting Kushimoto airfield on the southwestern tip of Honshu. Other warships reportedly struck at Kanagawa Prefecture, just south of Tokyo Bay. According to Admiral Nimitz, the conducting of these carrier-based raids around the clock represented a new phase of naval warfare.
A Japanese broadcast claimed that an American submarine had been sunk off South Ceram Island, west of Dutch New Guinea. The broadcast also announced the deaths of nine Japanese generals, as well as the welfare minister for the puppet government of "Vietnam"—the first time that name had been applied in the press to any portion of French Indo-China, explaining that the kingdom had been formed from the protectorate of Annam, which had declared independence from Indo-China following the full Japanese occupation the previous March. The welfare minister, according to the report, had been killed by strafing from an American plane while traveling between Haiphong and Hanoi.
General George C. Kenney, commander of the Far East Air Forces, warned Japan that the U. S. Air Forces were going to begin 5,000-ton bombing raids. He predicted that when Americans would land on the beaches, they would find no enemy after these massive air strikes. He informed that Japan was short of trained pilots and short of fuel.
Some 350 American planes of the Fifth and Seventh Air Forces struck at Shanghai, hitting the waterfront and attacking enemy shipping along the Whangpoo River and Tachang and Tinghai airports, sinking several enemy ships. The planes also attacked Korea.
The Chinese had broken through the south gate of the walled town of Yangso, 44 miles south of Kweilin. Japanese counter-attacks launched from Dong Dang in Indo-China across the border had struck two Chinese positions, at Chennankwan and Pingsiang. Chinese troops along the South China coastal highway reached the suburbs of Yuengkong.
Allied troops had killed more than 2,000 Japanese in a three-day battle with forces seeking escape from Southern Burma, reducing, along with other casualties, the enemy pocket at Pegu by more than half, previously estimated at 5,000. Heavy fighting continued between Toungoo and Nvaunglebin. The Allies occupied Taunggvi and patrolled east of the town.
As the Big Three ended their ninth day of talks, they took a temporary recess so that Prime Minister Churchill could fly back to London to receive the election results from July 5, which would be announced the following day. He was joined by Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and Labor Party leader Clement Atlee, about to become Prime Minister. A change in the leadership was not expected to hamper the conference as there had been no great variations in approach or policy between Mr. Churchill and Mr. Atlee.
A report stated that considerable agreement had been reached at the conference regarding control of the civilian population in Berlin and the establishment of uniform pricing and rationing.
Meanwhile, during the one day hiatus, President Truman flew to Frankfurt where he would meet with General Eisenhower and review American troops of the 84th Infantry and Third Armored Divisions.
In Paris, former President Albert Lebrun testified that on June 16, 1940, Marshal Petain had threatened to resign from the Reynaud Government unless it sought an armistice with Germany. Marshal Petain had, earlier in the day's testimony, refused to answer questions about whether he had sent a telegram congratulating the Germans for pushing back the Canadians at Dieppe in August, 1942, and whether he had asked Hitler to allow Vichy troops to fight with the Germans in defense of France.
New strikes brought the total workers who were idle across the nation to 56,000, the rise being the result of a dispute at Wright Aeronautical in New Jersey leaving 20,000 workers newly on strike. B-29 engine production was virtually at a standstill in the plants as a result.
Bill Cunningham, sports editor for the Boston Herald, had obtained an exclusive interview in Hamburg with Max Schmeling, the German defeated in 1938 by Joe Louis during the first minute of the fight for the world heavyweight championship in boxing. It had been reported that, in the interim, he had become a Nazi after the start of the war in 1939.
On the editorial page, "Still in Bounds" prints a list of nine cities of comparable population to Charlotte showing their total expenditures and net long-term debt. The table showed that Charlotte's spending was on par with the lower amounts being spent by similar-sized or even larger cities, but also evidenced that Charlotte had the second highest long-term debt among those on the list. That caused more than 20 percent of the expenditures to go toward debt service. Were that not in the picture, expenditures would be even less.
"J' Accuse" finds the trial of Henri Petain in Paris to be a circus of finger-pointing by its principal witnesses, Reynaud and General Gamelin, seeking to lay the blame for the fall of France to Germany on both Petain and Weygand, cleansing their own hands of any role in it. It had been only Petain and Weygand who refused the good counsel of De Gaulle. All the while, the principal culprit, Pierre Laval, was in a prison in Spain.
The testimony, it suggests, was not credible and had to be taken with a grain of salt.
"Hangers-On" wonders how much longer Senator Carter Glass of Virginia and Senator Happy Chandler of Kentucky could retain their seats. Senator Glass, 87, had been too ill to attend sessions for three years. Senator Chandler was devoting most of his time to his role as Commissioner of Baseball, missing eight roll calls during the first half of 1945.
Whether any of them pertained to strikes is not provided.
Only the Senate, itself, it continues, could expel a member, based on a two-thirds majority vote. But the only Senator ever expelled to that time had been Trusten Polk of Missouri, a Confederate sympathizer in 1862 charged with being a traitor, absent during the entire session of Congress during which the charge was brought.
The piece decides simply to mark the two off the roll.
"The Friendship" divines from the scant Associated Press reportage on Potsdam that the amity between President Truman and Premier Stalin at the conference had become so strong that Russia had provided several unspecified concessions believed impossible a week earlier.
The editorial remains skeptical, however, asserts that Stalin, no matter how admiring of the new President, from similar humble beginnings as Stalin, himself, would likely not grant sweeping concessions of the type imagined, such as on Poland, Rumania, the Dardanelles, or Russian demands for German reparations.
It expected continued convivial relations between the two, but no miracles were to be expected from the conference.
The excerpt from the Congressional Record has Senator William Langer of North Dakota discussing the cornering of 89 percent of the rye supply in the country by General Foods, labelling it "despicable speculation". He wanted a Congressional investigation of the matter. The Department of Agriculture had begun an investigation and then stopped, for unknown reasons, in May, 1944, at the time much of the speculation was just beginning.
He then underscores that a large part of General Foods was owned by Mrs. Joseph Davies, wife of the former Ambassador to Russia and Belgium. When finding itself stuck with so much rye, General Foods had turned to Belgium to strike a deal for purchase of a great portion of it, a deal financed by Lend-Lease from the United States.
Senator Langer asserts that he was not accusing Mr. Davies of interceding through contacts acquired while Ambassador, but believed the taxpayers were entitled to know the truth.
Drew Pearson suggests that President Truman would need to redefine or wipe out "spheres of influence" in Europe to insure world peace and prosperity, his enunciated goals for the conference at Potsdam.
The situations in Bulgaria and Rumania needed remedy from the Russian attempt to place governments which had thus far run roughshod over moderates.
Britain, too, had to be faced down by the President with regard to the continued presence of British troops in Abyssinia and Greece. The British had forced the appointment in Egypt of a Prime Minister, Moustafa Nahas Pasha, amicable to the British. Initially, King Fouad had rejected the advice as interference in Egypt's internal affairs. The Cabinet, including Nahas, signed a letter of protest.
The British Ambassador, upon receipt of the letter, sought an audience with the king, but before it could take place, British troops with machine guns led by tanks battered down the gates of the royal palace and positioned themselves outside its walls.
The Ambassador then presented King Fouad with an ultimatum, either immediately appoint Nahas, or the British would find "some excellent duck-shooting" for the king in South Africa, implying exile. The king then acquiesced.
Some 7,000 Greeks, neither Fascist nor pro-German, were, at the behest of the British, still prisoners in East African concentration camps. The only reason for their captivity was that they opposed the return of the monarchy which Churchill favored. While Churchill had been very concerned about the 16 imprisoned Polish officers in Moscow, so much so that he had urged President Truman to send Harry Hopkins to Russia to resolve the matter, he was showing no concern for these 7,000 Greek prisoners. It appeared incumbent upon President Truman to address this problem as well to Mr. Churchill.
The President also should seek, advises Mr. Pearson, to have the British withdraw intelligence officers from Greece who were disguised as United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration workers. He reminds that on March 22, he had published that an alleged British UNRRA worker, killed in Athens, had actually been an intelligence officer found with receipts showing payments which he had made to Rightists to start a civil war against the Leftists.
"...[F]rock-coated wine salesmen of a bygone era looking up toward Pete McKnight and debating whether to haunt him or to forgive him this time," from March 22, incidentally, is now
Samuel Grafton suggests that the Republican Party had to be worried about the popularity thus far of President Truman. One Washington observer stated that the GOP had worked out a plan for his defeat in 1948 by winning control of the House in 1946, campaigning on local and regional issues. It would then proceed to launch investigations into Pearl Harbor, war contracts, supposed secret diplomacy, the business dealings of Elliott Roosevelt, and other such Democratic hot potatoes.
Mr. Grafton finds the plan devoid of substance in that it did not address basic bread and butter issues, the economy and social programs.
The recent introduction of a proposed constitutional amendment to limit the President's time in office to two terms, introduced by House Minority Leader Joe Martin of Massachusetts, was another method by which the Republicans were seeking to limit presidential power. He also had proposed that all nations give up compulsory military training following the war, despite the fact that everyone knew the other nations would not agree.
There had also been an attack on the news blackout of the negotiations at Potsdam, suggesting that it was covering up President Truman bartering away lives in Eastern Europe by negotiating with the Russians for help in the Pacific war. There had been talk also that the conferees were simply enjoying themselves socially and not getting any work done.
The whole attempt at chipping away at the President's popularity in this manner reminded Mr. Grafton of a group of fireflies, lighting up at once, but providing little light on the landscape.
Marquis Childs believes the President should apply a non-partisan principle to the State Department appointments, if he truly wanted to take politics out of foreign policy. He favors a suggestion by Roscoe Drummond in the Christian Science Monitor that the President appoint a prominent Republican as Undersecretary to replace Joseph Grew. Mr. Drummond had suggested either Hamilton Fish Armstrong or John Foster Dulles, both having been key advisers at the San Francisco Conference.
Mr. Armstrong had made foreign policy his life's work and Mr. Dulles would have likely been Thomas Dewey's Secretary of State had Governor Dewey been elected President in 1944.
The delegation to San Francisco had been bi-partisan and it had led to cohesiveness.
An analogy could be drawn to Britain where, despite a divisive election full of bitter rhetoric, Mr. Churchill had invited Clement Atlee, his Labor Party rival, to Potsdam.
For President Truman to take such a step at the State Department would demonstrate good intentions and would underscore the non-partisanship shown by Republicans during the war on foreign policy and during the United Nations Conference.
In August, the President would appoint Assistant Secretary of State Dean Acheson to the position of Undersecretary. Mr. Grew had also served as Undersecretary previously, during the Administration of Republican Calvin Coolidge. Mr. Acheson, a Democrat and New Dealer, was therefore a more partisan appointment than Mr. Grew had been under FDR in December.
Mr. Acheson would become Secretary at the beginning of President Truman's second term in 1949. It would be during his tenure that the witchhunt of
For now, the House Un-American Activities Committee, at least insofar as its ranking member, John Rankin of Mississippi, was concerned, found the Communist stronghold in the Government to be confined to the War Department, run by Republican Henry Stimson.
A letter to the editor, again responsive to the letter of the previous Thursday, attacking Charlotte laundry workers striking for better wages and finding that, because they had a lower standard of living as African-Americans, they did not need a better wage, agrees with the previous writer only to the extent that the strike was unfortunate.
But he does not believe the strikers un-American for merely seeking to raise their standard of living. If they were ignorant, as the previous writer had suggested, then it was the lack of funding for black schools which was primarily to blame. The workers were receiving about $14 per week in wages and had to pay the same prices as everyone else. The writer indicates that he had once worked in a laundry and knew that ten hours per day in such an establishment was grueling work.
He supports both the unions
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