Wednesday, April 17, 1946

The Charlotte News

Wednesday, April 17, 1946

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the House, after voting overwhelmingly not to support the legislation put forth by Representative John Rankin of Mississippi to terminate OPA on June 30, the Mississippi reactionary Democrat having labeled it "Communistic" and contrary to the interests of the American people, voted to extend the life of OPA. By a coalition of Republicans and a small number of Southern Democrats, however, the body voted also to amend the bill by limiting the extension to nine months rather than the Administration-favored one year, and to limit the authority on price control to inclusion of costs and reasonable profits in establishing any price ceilings. The profits provision required a profit at each level of distribution, including retailers, meaning that OPA could not, as it had in the case of automobiles, force retailers to absorb increases in wholesale prices, meaning that the increases would have to be borne finally by the consumer.

The President appointed George V. Allen of Durham, N.C., to be the new Ambassador to Iran, replacing Wallace Murray who was ill. Mr. Allen, a former reporter and high school teacher, was a State Department expert on the Middle East and the Russo-Iranian dispute.

The President also appointed Edwin F. Stanton to become Minister to Siam. He had been consul general at Vancouver.

The U.N. Security Council prepared to begin to address Poland's complaint regarding Spain. Meanwhile, the Spanish Cabinet denied the charge that Spain was allowing former Nazi scientists to work on development of an atom bomb, stating that the accusations were the result of a worldwide Communist conspiracy.

In Shanghai, a U.S. Military Commission passed sentences of five to nine years against four Japanese Army officers convicted of executing three of the Doolittle raiders of April 18, 1942. The officers were the warden of the military prison and director of the firing squad, two members of the military court martial panel, and a lieutenant general who had commanded the Japanese 13th Expeditionary Army in China. Captain Yusei Wako, one of the two members of the panel, received the stiffest sentence at nine years, apparently because he had prior legal experience. The others were sentenced to five years each.

The President expressed at a press conference his full support of DNC chairman and Postmaster General Robert Hannegan, despite his coming under heavy criticism of late by Southern Democrats who had urged his resignation.

The available annual meat supply was expected to drop to 132 pounds per capita by July 1, down from 147 pounds during the first quarter, and even lower than the wartime average for 1943 of 136 pounds.

Former director of the UNRRA, former New York Governor Herbert Lehman, charged the Government with faulty planning and unrealistic abandonment of rationing after V-J Day, leading to the failure of the country to meet its responsibilities in feeding Europe, and urged a return to rationing. He stated that the Administration estimates that the European food crisis would pass in 90 days underestimated the crisis. The CIO PAC echoed the call for renewed rationing.

The President urged Americans to get by on European rations, 800 to 1,500 calories per day, for two days per week until the food crisis had passed. He stated that wasted food in the country could feed the Europeans during the crisis. Average American caloric intake was 3,300 per day.

In Changchun in Manchuria, it was predicted by the Sino-American troop headquarters that the city would fall within three days to the Chinese Communists. The Communist forces had penetrated deeply into the city. Nearest reinforcements would take a week to reach the Government troops holding out in the city.

Harold Ickes, in his thrice-weekly column, discusses the prospects of former Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen to obtain the Republican nomination for 1948, and finds that he had already missed the train. The first signal was the selection by the Republicans of Congressman Carroll Reece of Tennessee to become the chairman of the RNC. Mr. Reece was opposed to Mr. Stassen's candidacy.

In selecting Mr. Reece, the party indicated its realization finally that it was the South which determined the Republican national ticket, a fact known by political insiders to have been the case consistently since the 1870's.

Before every Republican national convention, men with well-filled purses had lined up delegates in the South. The Southern delegates had re-nominated William Howard Taft in 1912 and had been responsible for the nomination of Charles Evans Hughes in 1916, as well as Warren G. Harding in 1920. Their support was built on party patronage to the South and money greasing the palms of the delegates.

Mr. Ickes had been a delegate to the 1920 convention, possessed of high hopes that party leaders could cure the party of this "hookworm" which beset it. But instead of being successful at doing so, the practice of buying support continued unabated and Mr. Ickes resigned the party for good.

Thus, with the practice continuing, he predicts, quite accurately, that Mr. Stassen's candidacy would get nowhere, as the Southern delegates would continue in 1948 to determine the party nominee through buy-outs of their support. He predicts, however, incorrectly that the nominee would be either former Ohio Governor John W. Bricker or Ohio Senator Robert Taft. The nominee would again be New York Governor Thomas Dewey.

In New York, three young boys, ages 6 and 7, playing "Buffalo Bill" in a chicken coop, lit a bonfire and burned to death.

In Johannesburg, South Africa, a run on land had been triggered by the discovery of a rich gold vein in the Odendaals-Rust region of the Orange Free State. Farm land recently selling for $20 now could not be had for $4,800. Formerly poor farmers were now wealthy, with options on their land running into the millions.

In Pleasantville, N.J., police charged a 23-year old former Navy Wave with abandoning her infant, after she had left the infant in St. Mary's Catholic Church in Washington with a note saying that her husband had not returned from the war, that she was a teenager and had no ability to care for the child, three weeks old, as reported the previous week.

It turned out that she was from Atlantic City, not the South, as the note contended, and was from a good family. The father of the infant was living and she was not Catholic, and so her contention that her parents objected to the marriage because the father was not Catholic was also false. She had voluntarily appeared, stating that she wanted her baby back after her grandparents agreed to provide it a home.

On the editorial page, "When Is a Democrat Improper?" comments on Representative Joseph Bryson of South Carolina suggesting that the Democratic caucus might ask for the resignation of embattled Robert Hannegan as DNC chairman. Mr. Hannegan was getting the business also from Harold Ickes in his column for being unworthy of the leadership of a liberal party, thus the recipient of criticism from both sides of the ideological divide within the party.

The sensitivity of the Southerners to criticism by the party organization, implicitly labeling them other than "proper candidates" and voting against American interests for voting for the Case anti-union bill, suggested the question whether the Democratic Party chairman did not have the right to urge the vote for Democrats who were loyal to the Administration while urging ouster of those who voted with Republicans.

It questions whether labeling the division in the party to be one between "proper" and "improper" Democrats was any the less preferable to it being termed one between "loyal and "disloyal" party members. There was no slur involved in such labels when Democrats in the majority voted with the Republican minority.

"Bureaus Can Be Efficient" recommends the efficient record of the Home Owner's Loan Corporation, founded as part of the New Deal in 1933 to take over private mortgages in default to prevent wholesale foreclosures, to the effort to curb inflationary trends in the post-war period.

HOLC had been originally capitalized with 200 million dollars of public funds and had lost 337 million dollars in its first years of operation. But by 1945, it had reduced the deficit to 80 million and had shown an annual profit of 22.6 million. By 1952 at its scheduled liquidation, it would achieve a small profit and retire all of its original 200 million dollar debt to the Treasury.

"The Book Publishers' Gamble" takes issue with the publishing world's blurring of lines between literature and pornography in the attempt to appeal to the salacious interests of readers and sell books. It uses as its first exhibit actor Errol Flynn's Showdown, plus another called The Manatee, the notorious Forever Amber—about traffic lights—and Duchess Hotspur, sporting a theme, no doubt, based on Shakespeare's histories.

The journalism world, never permitted such license as artists writing literature, had nevertheless generally supported the license granted the publishing world in this respect, such as in Ulysses, in which James Joyce had forced his reader to wade through large amounts of stream-of-consciousness quite without any appeal to prurient interests, before encountering anything the least bit lurid. It notes that the court which upheld his right to publish it did so on the ground that he had not written the work just to sell books—more to the point, not just for the sake of appeal to prurient interests but that it possessed literary merit.

The same had been true of Sinclair Lewis in Cass Timberlane.

In admitting importation of Ulysses into the United States as not being violative of the Federal statute then banning importation of an "obscene" book, designed to appeal to prurient interests of the reader, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York stated in 1933:

It is because Joyce has been loyal to his technique and has not funked its necessary implications, but has honestly attempted to tell fully what his characters think about, that he has been the subject of so many attacks and that his purpose has been so often misunderstood and misrepresented. For his attempt sincerely and honestly to realize his objective has required him incidentally to use certain words which are generally considered dirty words and has led at times to what many think is a too poignant preoccupation with sex in the thoughts of his characters.

The words which are criticized as dirty are old Saxon words known to almost all men and, I venture, to many women, and are such words as would be naturally and habitually used, I believe by the types of folk whose life, physical and mental, Joyce is seeking to describe. In respect of the recurrent emergence of the theme of sex in the minds of his characters, it must always be remembered that his locale was Celtic and his season Spring.

Whether or not one enjoys such a technique as Joyce uses is a matter of taste on which disagreement or argument is futile, but to subject that technique to the standards of some other technique seems to me to be little short of absurd.

Accordingly, I hold that Ulysses is a sincere and honest book and I think that the criticisms of it are entirely disposed of by its rationale.

Furthermore, Ulysses is an amazing "tour de force" when one considers the success which has been in the main achieved with such a difficult objective as Joyce set for himself. As I have stated, Ulysses is not an easy book to read. It is brilliant and dull, intelligible and obscure by turns. In many places it seems to me to be disgusting, but although it contains, as I have mentioned above, many words usually considered dirty, I have not found anything that I consider to be dirt for dirt's sake. Each word of the book contributes like a bit of mosaic to the detail of the picture which Joyce is seeking to construct for his readers. If one does not wish to associate with such folk as Joyce describes, that is one's own choice. In order to avoid indirect contact with them one may not wish to read Ulysses; that is quite understandable. But when such a real artist in words, as Joyce undoubtedly is, seeks to draw a true picture of the lower middle class in a European city, ought it to be impossible for the American public legally to see that picture?

Not since Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence, continues the piece, had any book in the previous thirty years been the subject of censorship, save by the Board of Censorship in Boston or the Legion of Decency.

But, it cautions, were the publishers to continue along the same track, they were courting the invitation to formal censorship by the courts, as the ads themselves for this newest spate of salacious material proved the purpose of the publications.

Of course, there is no limitation carved within the First Amendment regarding freedom of speech or press, and to create one is, by the fact of it, a chilling mechanism on all speech.

To say that "responsibility" is required in publishing suggests only that publishers and writers exert it of their own initiative, not by the inevitable fiat of courts or boards or any other instrumentality by which witch hunts inevitably are conducted on the basis of the politics of the author versus the contrary politics of the judges of the work.

One man's trash of a liberal bent is another's art, and vice versa. Such was proven the case during the 1950's, spent as it was in Dodge City, leading on to the turbulent 1960's and early 1970's. A society cannot for long suppress freedom of expression without the expectation of an equal and opposite reaction which, for reasons of rebellion, far exceeds, in the end, the "evil" sought to be eradicated by the censorship. Witness, for instance, the state of popular music today, in reaction to reckless attempts to regulate relatively tame versions of it a mere 25 and more years ago. Witness the results in the same manner in motion pictures since the 1960's.

Censorship, whether by a legislative body or a court, is a fool's game, exerted only in the end to try to achieve public approbation for political purposes, the aggrandizement of the censors in the perceptions of the conservative public who want everyone to view reality just as they do, never realizing that the role of the artist is to expand the perception of the viewer, not merely to massage the perceiver's existing perception in an unrealistically enhanced version of reality seen through rose-colored glasses.

And to attempt it is quite contrary to the First Amendment, the common law antecedents of which provided only for sedition, defamation, and actual threats of physical harm as limits of the freedoms.

One cannot create rubber bathtubs to insure the safety of all taking a bath. The responsibility also lies with the bather, including the child, to watch for his or her own safety, and for the parent properly to instruct the child in safe bathing. To tell the person not to bathe for fear of contaminated water, or, for that matter, fluoridation, is the functional equivalent of censorship, leading only to a rather troublesome environment.

Anything, anything at all, including passages of the Bible, can become "dirty" if interpreted in certain lights by certain minds, acting in juvenile mode.

The country would never have had a Revolution to establish the most liberal form of government ever known to the world had limits been placed on freedom of expression, reticence in fear of official reprisal, as Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death" certainly, to those disposed to limit political revolt, would have been considered a threat to the established order.

On appeal, incidentally, to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in 1934, which upheld the finding that Ulysses was not "obscene" within the statutory definition of that term, a dissenting Justice noted, in finding the book obscene:

The parties agreed as to the facts in the stipulation. There is no conflicting evidence; the decision to be made is dependent entirely upon the reading matter found on the objectionable pages of the book (pages 173, 213, 214, 359, 361, 423, 424, 434, 467, 488, 498, 500, 509, 522, 526, 528, 551, 719, 724-727, 731, 738, 739, 745, 746, 754-756, 761, 762, 765, Random House Edition). The book itself was the only evidence offered.

...Who can doubt the obscenity of this book after a reading of the pages referred to, which are too indecent to add as a footnote to this opinion? Its characterization as obscene should be quite unanimous by all who read it.

The point being that it is usually the case that the individual seeking to ban speech is the very individual assuring, via pinpoint accuracy, its certain dissemination among those most interested in its supposedly prurient aspects. You will have to obtain the Random House edition to follow precisely the judge's findings.

Drew Pearson explains the Russian attempt to move the permanent seat of the U.N. to Geneva because of its New York locale providing too much support to the smaller nations, under the sway of public opinion generated by the New York media-rich environment. Though originally supportive of the American site, the Russians now believed it a mistake. Additional support for the change was, however, limited to Yugoslavia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and France.

In support of their argument was the inhospitable reception by Connecticut residents to having the permanent site of the U.N. in their back yard. The decision by Hunter College not to continue as host, despite disuse for some time of the buildings in which the delegates had been meeting, the lease set to expire May 15, also had provided suport to the Russian idea.

One U.N. delegate remarked: "New Yorkers don't seem to realize that war inconveniences people. To some extent, so does peace."

He next reports the refusal of State Department counselor Ben Cohen to use his influence to try to obtain admission to the United States of the 100,000 displaced Jews of Europe, for the fact that it would be inappropriate to his position to support a personal cause.

A black former master sergeant in the Army testified before General Doolittle's board investigating the caste system between officers and enlisted men, that there was little racial discrimination in the Army. There had been some initial trouble when he first enlisted in Louisiana in 1941: some fights had erupted, but the trouble quickly dissipated. He encountered no racial bias at all while overseas. He suggested that saluting of officers when off duty be optional.

The column next reports that many Democratic Congressman would vote against the position of powerful House Speaker Sam Rayburn in committee but not oppose him in open vote on the House floor. An example was in the efforts of the electrical power lobby to influence sub-committee votes by handing out nylon stockings for members' wives. The tactic had influenced at least three members in a vote to stop a bill to construct power lines for distribution of Government-generated power from Denison Dam on the Texas-Oklahoma border and the Norfolk, Ark., dam. Mr. Pearson wonders whether the three members would vote likewise on the floor.

Marquis Childs compares America to a fat hog eating its head off, in relation to the food crisis in Europe. The hogs were consuming the grain necessary to feed Europe. Chester Bowles, while head of OPA, had promised no decrease in hog prices prior to September to insure meat supply. But now the desire was to limit hog production to enable grain to go to Europe. Hogs were being retained on the farm until very fat.

As a remedy, Mr. Bowles had suggested a plan whereby farmers would be paid a premium for lightweight hogs with an additional premium on 50,000 bushels of corn to serve as hog feed. He also intended hog prices to be reduced after September 1. Secretary of Commerce and former Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace, an expert in the corn-hog ratio, approved the plan.

But when the plan reached the President and Secretary of Agriculture Clinton Anderson, the price reduction on hogs was nixed, though the premiums were approved. The matter, however, was still under consideration.

The farm bloc in Congress was the ultimate consideration blocking the efforts. The farmers were not realizing that they were obtaining greater prosperity than at any time since World War I.

And meanwhile the hog continued to eat the precious grain necessary to feed Europe.

Bertram Benedict discusses the House caucus regarding the party schism and the mechanics of a party caucus meeting.

The Republicans called it a conference and members were not bound by decisions of the conference. Some members never attended.

The Democrats allowed caucusing members not to be bound by decisions if it would impact adversely the member's campaign by forcing a change of a position to which the member was already pledged, or if the member had a differing view on interpretation of the Constitution. A vote of two-thirds of the Democrats in the House was required for any decision to have binding effect on the members otherwise.

During the Wilson Administration, the President made use of the Senate and House caucuses to eliminate rifts over legislation before it got to the floor. But afterward, the caucus fell into disrepute because of its secrecy and its tendency to steamroll dissenters.

The present caucus was thought to be an attempt by the Southern Democrats to obtain control of the party. The thirteen Southern states had 27 percent of the seats in the House, 117 of 435, but 49.5 percent of the Democratic seats.

A letter writer, the president of the Southern Friction Materials Co., addresses an open letter to Representative Sam Ervin regarding the wage increases inevitably leading to price increases, starting at the level of raw materials, especially steel, coal, cotton yarns, and castor oil, in turn causing price increases in the industries dependent on these raw materials, setting up the spiral of inflation. He asserts that OPA should not allow price increases in raw materials without also permitting them for the finished product. The crusade to limit prices, he suggests, only stifled production while stimulating the black market.

A letter from a regular writer from Dallas, N.C., thanks the newspaper for its April 12 editorial, "A Year Without Roosevelt", finding it a fair and just portrait of a great man. The writer opines that had FDR lived, much of the bickering of the previous year would have been avoided.

She also states her thanks for the five articles by Atlanta Constitution Editor Ralph McGill on Palestine and voices support for making it a home land for the homeless and destitute Jews of Europe.

A letter from the underground explains to the bus riders and sidewalk walkers who normally hung out about Liggetts Drug Store on Trade Street, that the recent work in front of the drug store which had blocked off foot traffic was for the purpose of digging a new sewer line, at places some 14 feet deep in the ground, to permit proper drainage from the new deeper basement of the store, enabling gravity to take care of the sewage.

The editors, on behalf of the "sidewalk superintendents" and bus riders of Charlotte, thank the gentleman for his dutiful report of "this inside information on the subterranean doings on The Square," and on the level.

Framed Edition
[Return to Links
Page by Subject] [Return to Links-Page by Date] [Return to News<i><i><i>--</i></i></i>Framed Edition]
Links-Date -- Links-Subj.