The Charlotte News
Wednesday, July 4, 1945
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that 500 B-29's attacked four targets in Japan, Tokushima, Takamatsu, and Kochi on Shokoku Island, and Himeji on Honshu. Damage was greatest in Tokushima. It was the 37th raid on Japan by incendiary bombs.
In another raid, 240 planes, consisting of three B-29's, 120 Mustangs, and 120 assorted bombers, attacked targets in Japan, on Honshu and Kyushu.
Tokyo radio contended that 4.5 million people had been killed, injured, or made homeless in Tokyo, Kobe, Osaka, Yokohama, and Nagoya in the American raids conducted through May 31. A list is provided for each city, detailing number of homes claimed as destroyed and persons rendered homeless or "affected".
Meanwhile, American generals of the air force expressed wonder at why the raids were able now to penetrate Japanese airspace with little or no air opposition. The Japanese were once producing 1,200 to 1,500 planes per month, and while the raids had cut that production level down, they were not destroying as many planes each month as the production lines could churn out.
Tokyo radio contended that American warships had shelled Karafuto Island the previous day in the deepest penetration of Japanese waters by the Navy thus far in the war. Karafuto was the southern half of Sahkalin Island, the northern half of which belonged to Russia.
The last Japanese airbase on Balikpapan, Manggar, was menaced by the Australian Seventh Division, led by Matilda tanks. Seppingang airfield had been captured on Monday.
Senator Clyde Hoey of North Carolina advocated the passage of anti-strike legislation, the so-called Hatch-Ball-Burton Bill, "H1B2", precursor to the Taft-Hartley Act which would be passed over President Truman's veto in 1947. He stated that he deplored laws which enabled control of Montgomery Ward head Sewell Avery, who had in spring, 1944 caused a stir with his being carried out of his company headquarters bodily by two soldiers after the Government took over the plant from which he refused voluntarily to leave, while it left the Government helpless to control Caesar Petrillo or John L. Lewis.
"Report", from April 28, 1944, incidentally, is now
The ongoing strikes in the tire industry in Akron continued, as Economic Stabilizer William Davis received the case from the War Labor Board to take whatever action he deemed fit to end the eighteen-day old strike.
The rest of the country remained on the job for the most part on this last July Fourth of World War II. President Truman remained at his desk in the White House.
Fair weather generally prevailed across the nation.
Dade County, Georgia, made known that it was ending a tradition that it was still seceded from the Union, after a proclamation of secession for the county had been sent to Washington in 1860.
In Berlin, the American flag was hoisted over the Adolf Hitler barracks, and a 48-gun salute was fired by troops of the Second Army. Other July Fourth celebrations were conducted by Americans throughout areas of Europe.
Actress Joan Blondell's sister, Gloria, filed suit in Los Angeles for divorce from Alfred Broccoli, whose family gave the name to the vegetable. She cited cruelty as grounds, perhaps from having daily to consume spears of broccoli.
On the editorial page, "The 4th Abroad" contrasts this Fourth of July in Europe with the previous one where the Allies were fighting in the hedgerows of Normandy. Now, these men were coming home.
But in the Pacific, fighting still lay ahead and the bombing campaigns left no time for celebration for the airmen.
In Denmark, the Danes had conducted in
"Shy Customers" finds that the Seventh War Loan drive had fulfilled 70 percent of the quota established within the Western counties of North Carolina, just four days from the end of the campaign. It posits that the general reluctance of the average person to invest in war bonds was perhaps explained by the fact that 80 percent of the nation's liquidity, standing in April at 35 billion dollars, was in the hands of the wealthy, not, as commonly believed, possessed by low-income workers.
"Time to Expand" discusses a presentation by a Charlottean before the Chamber of Commerce, or so it would appear, (as the editorial bothers not to tell us where it took place or precisely the significance of the gentleman giving the presentation, probably because of short staffing on July Fourth, not that it much matters), that the city had become the fourth largest market in the South, behind Atlanta, Memphis, and Dallas. For all of this new prosperity, however, the presenter had also pointed out the city's shortcomings in growth and the need for more office and warehouse space, hotels, more good homes, and the like.
"The Condemned" points out that the captured Prussians of the General Staff were arguing among themselves in their place of confinement at Wiesbaden. The men, most of whom were condemned, included von Rundstedt, von Thoma, Halder, von Kleist, and von Falkenhausen. The men were such deadly enemies of von Rundstedt that they were forced to use the kitchen sink for their toilet rather than pass through von Rundstedt's room to the regular facilities.
The hope was that, per one goal of the Yalta agreement, to destroy the General Staff, these men would be taken directly to the gallows following their interrogations and hanged, while still quarreling among themselves as to what had gone wrong in the war and on whom the blame should be fixed.
The excerpt from the Congressional Record has, for the second day in a row, Senator James Eastland of Mississippi holding forth, now in debate with Senator James Tunnel of Delaware regarding Liberia and the FEPC and slavery in the United States. It is quite fuzzy, and deservedly so for Senator Eastland, whose arguments along these lines were always fuzzy anyway. If you can figure it out, have at it.
Senator Eastland appears to be condemning Liberia for its poor conditions and suggesting that it was the result of its being founded by former American slaves. Senator Tunnell begs to differ.
Drew Pearson discusses the continuing shortage of meat in the country in some detail.
He then explains the intense secrecy within the War Surplus Property Board following the resignation of former Senator Guy Gillette and the firing of Wesley Sturges. It had come out, however, that the Board had decided to unload a lot of the surplus war property in England and British-dominated areas to allow exchange through local currencies, which would allow the Sterling bloc to continue to dominate the currency market in Egypt and the Middle East, making it more difficult for American businesses to operate in these areas, a desired result by the British.
The column next reports that Representative George Bender of Ohio and Frank Keefe of Wisconsin had become the first Republicans in a long while to challenge the Democrats on their social program. Both had openly challenged the chair of the Appropriations Committee, Clarence Cannon of Missouri—who had recently become embroiled in a fistfight with Representative John Taber of New York—when he had claimed that the Democrats had not obstructed the bill to make the Fair Employment Practices Committee permanent.
The two Republicans had pointed out that the Democrats had 50 more votes in the House than did the Republicans and therefore could pass legislation whenever they desired. Mr. Keefe dared the chairman to allow the bill to come to the floor of the House for a vote.
Mr. Bender indicated that it had been Rules Committee chair Representative Roger Slaughter of Missouri, from President Truman's home district, who had prevented the FEPC bill from coming to a vote on the floor.
He then listed several legislative achievements by the Republicans before the New Deal, the Railroad Labor Act, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, the Child Labor Amendment, and other social legislation.
Mr. Pearson points out that, despite the validity of many of these points by Mr. Bender and Mr. Keefe, the Republicans as a body in the House had been just as evasive as the Democrats regarding the bill to make permanent the FEPC.
Samuel Grafton comments on the fact that artillery shells could not be shipped to the Pacific in fiber cases as used for shipping to Europe, but had to be transported in sheet metal containers to protect them from the harsh tropical climate. The requirement placed a strain on the nation's steel supply and was preventing a return to normalcy in production of civilian products.
Generally, the trend toward reconversion was taking over the country's mood, but was premature.
Marquis Childs tells of an unnamed American visitor to England who had spoken to Prime Minister Churchill about the British election scheduled for the following day, finding him in good spirits, enjoying the campaign. When asked what the British public wanted from the election, Mr. Churchill had responded "more Socialism and more Churchill".
The Prime Minister, at 71, remained energetic, more so than many of the younger Cabinet members, such as ulcer-ridden Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, 23 years the junior of Mr. Churchill. The P. M. could be found often stopped by the roadside during the campaign to lunch on sandwiches and whisky.
The previous winter, the political observers in Britain predicted that his wartime presence would bring a post-war Conservative Government to power. But the campaign had been a tough one and his victory was by no means assured. Clement Atlee, former Deputy Prime Minister in the Coalition Cabinet, which had been disbanded in May at the call of the general election, was a formidable opponent.
The new Parliament would contain many war heroes and the impulse would be to shed the country of the many wartime restraints. The Conservatives had campaigned on the basis of ending the wartime controls. But doing so too hastily could cause economic woes by stimulating inflation. Should the Conservatives fail, there would likely be a sharp turn to the left.
This prospect left it open to the Labor Party to argue persuasively that a moderate Government could better make changes without taking the country too far away from the pre-war status in which broad social programs had been effected.
Mr. Churchill was a shrewd politician, understood the desire for lifelong social security in the country and for flexible give and take in the social system. He had brought into the Conservative Party many bright younger men who understood that the Conservatives had to lead the way to reasonable social change or be swept aside by the tide.
Dorothy Thompson, still in Frankfurt am Main, suggests that disarmament and control of industry in Germany would not necessarily prevent future wars. Education was needed to make it clear that war itself was an absurdity, that wars were, by design, to extend power and prosperity by grabbing off the property of the perceived enemy. But when war destroyed the enemy's means of production, there was no point to the acquisition.
Political structures needed to be established, as in the United States, to prevent war from being undertaken absent popular approval through elected representatives. The people of the world universally despised war and thus would make it difficult to undertake when popular approval was first requisite.
Science, when harnessed to produce weapons for warfare, became political, without regard to which country its inventions were provided. The hundred scientists rounded up from Nazi Germany, who were as responsible as the leaders for enabling the war, those working on rocketry, were just as eager to work for the British and Americans as they had been for Germany. Others of these scientists were now working in Russia.
The U. N. needed to devise a method by which there would be international control of the production of weapons.
The American Mercury tells of the rules of etiquette to be followed with natives of the Pacific, among which was the rule against speaking or
Another was the custom of receiving visitors outside the home, not inside.
Don't touch people on the head, don't watch people eat, don't stand up in the presence of superiors, maintain your seat.
We might add that it would probably be impolite to serve broccoli with
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