Tuesday, July 2, 1946

The Charlotte News

Tuesday, July 2, 1946

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Senator Alben Barkley and Administration leaders were opposed to rent control legislation being passed ahead of new legislation to restore OPA. Senator Homer Capehart of Indiana had sought an immediate vote on the proposed rent control bill, believing it would pass.

The House the day before had passed an emergency bill to extend OPA for 20 days. The bill was delayed for at least a day, by the objections of some Senators, in being passed to the Senate Banking Committee.

Governor Gregg Cherry of North Carolina was preparing to issue a proclamation, pursuant to his emergency war powers, regarding rent controls unless the Congress acted quickly to restore OPA. The Governor first called upon the people of the state to "do the right thing".

Rents had been reported increasing in the state by as much as 30 to 100 percent since the end of OPA on Sunday.

Meanwhile, livestock flooded the nation's stockyards as prices rose in Chicago to a record high of $22.50, compared to the previous OPA ceiling of $4.50.

Hogs were at $18.50 the previous day, the highest price since 1919, but dropped $2 this date, still $1.65 above the former OPA ceiling. There were 110,000 hogs in the pens compared to 23,400 a week earlier and 54,000 a year earlier.

Retail prices remained steady across the nation, while rents continued to rise.

The Civil Production Administration rejected efforts of dress designers to obtain greater allocation of fabric for dresses. A shortage of fabric for men's clothing earlier had prompted the restriction on dresses, which generally could be sold for substantially higher prices than men's clothing.

At Bikini Atoll, firefighters continued to try to extinguish blazes on some of the 73 ships which had been the target of the Able blast of the atomic bomb on Sunday. Five ships had now sunk, as the Japanese cruiser Sakawa and the destroyer Anderson went down.

Secretary of the Navy Forrestal expressed surprise at the low level of damage to the heavier ships. He expected greater damage from the Baker test, to be exploded underwater in about three weeks.

All of the animals aboard the damaged ships had survived the blast but studies would continue on the effects of radiation on them.

During the test, a drone airplane had penetrated the atomic cloud and emerged still flying, dragging part of the cloud with it. Reports stated that some of the B-17 drones returned to Eniwetok so hot with radiation that no one could approach the planes.

Secretary Forrestal and Vice Admiral W.H.P. Blandy, commander of the operation, risked exposure to radiation to get a closer survey of the damage and watch, from only 50 yards distant, the Sakawa sink in Bikini Lagoon. They also moved in close to inspect the heavy damage to the submarine Skate, 50 yards from the target ship Nevada. Radiation in the area was reported off the scale. But Vice Admiral Blandy just laughed at the news.

Secretary Forrestal would die in 1949 at Bethesda Naval Hospital, jumping to his death. Vice Admiral Blandy would die at age 63 in 1954.

Yugoslavia indicated that it would not accept a French compromise proposal for Trieste but stated that the country might accept internationalization of the port as long as Yugoslavia was involved in the administration. The United States, Great Britain, and Russia had the previous day accepted the French proposal under which certain boundaries would be demarked between Yugoslavia and Italy, depriving Yugoslavia of the Tarvia railway and the Monfalcone shipyards.

The National Safety Council issued rules for safety on July Fourth: drive carefully; don't overdo exercise, eating or exposure to the sun; don't swim alone or when overheated; and don't use fireworks.

Otherwise, you can do whatever you want to do.

On the editorial page, "Caution: Free Men at Work" discusses the precipitous rise in prices and rents, locally and nationally, since price controls had been released on Sunday.

Meat producers were now operating in Charlotte at the highest level in months and promised prices would not be more than 15 percent above the old ceilings.

A Charlotte restaurant had raised everything on the menu by a dime.

In Dallas, milk went up by three cents a quart.

Merchants were pledging restraint, but the piece warns that as retailers encountered higher prices from manufacturers and producers, those prices would inevitably be passed on to the consumer. The inflationary spiral would not show its hand until Congress made a final decision on OPA. The possibility of a new bill served as a check on prices.

The question remaining was how bad the inflation would become should Congress not act soon. Past experience suggested a brief boom and then a sharp decline into depression. It could land the country back where it was in 1934, only saddled with the largest debt in history, accumulated from the war.

It suggests that the American system deserved more than boom and bust.

"Another Plea for Action" again discusses the efforts of the Governor's Emergency Committee to bring about higher education for veterans seeking it. Controller William D. Carmichael of the University of North Carolina—for whom Carmichael Auditorium would be named in 1965—reported to the Governor and Trustees that within a few years 30,000 veterans and 20,000 other civilians might be denied admission to North Carolina colleges and universities for want of facilities. Every institution in the state was operating at maximum capacity, permitting a total of about 30,000 students. Already, 12,500 veterans had been rejected for the fall semester.

Mr. Carmichael favored increasing admission at Chapel Hill to 8,000 students, at N.C. State, to 5,000, and at Woman's College in Greensboro, to 4,000. Such expansion would have been undertaken previously but for the war. He believed that therefore the Federal Government should underwrite most of the cost for the expansion to serve veterans.

But it was questionable whether Federal aid could be obtained to the degree necessary. The editorial urges the state to accept the responsibility at once.

"Bureau of Missing Persons" comments on a new twist in Superior Court, not the usual problem with missing defendants and witnesses, but rather the absence of any judge to preside. No one appeared to know which judge was supposed to be assigned to the district for the week. Swapping of assignments to accommodate vacation schedules had produced a mix-up.

It appeared Superior Court would have to be suspended for a week.

"Ah well, accidents will happen, particularly in Superior Court, which functions with all the dignity and dispatch of a kindergarten wiener roast. And we certainly have no recommendations to offer in this instance. You can't very well issue a capias for a missing judge, and our long experience with defendants has demonstrated the futility of putting anybody under bond for a scheduled appearance at the Mecklenburg courthouse."

A piece from the Wilmington Evening Post, "A Note on Common Decency", finds the reaction of some residents in Springfield, Ill., to the veterans' housing issue to be callous, in one instance a letter writer telling them to "live in a tent".

The piece finds the report instructive of why so many veterans had headed to the Southeast, which had been described as the section of the country offering the greatest opportunity to veterans.

Drew Pearson quotes Senator Theodore Bilbo from the stump in Mississippi, fighting for his political life in the primary, saying: "Send me back to the Senate and I'll see to it that Southern womanhood is safe. I'll protect your homes from the invasion of Northern Communists and Niggers."

The "pecker-woods" were giving him more problems this time, he said, than in the previous two elections. Mississippians, says Mr. Pearson, were simply in fact not so gullible as they once had been.

His chances in the election had been served by the Supreme Court decision requiring allowance of black participation in the Democratic primary. It could be used as his bogey to motivate people to the polls out of the old fears.

The column then proceeds to relate of a number of vignettes involving Mr. Bilbo, most of which have been told before.

Finally, he tells of the Truman in-laws in Missouri being hostile to photojournalists wanting pictures. The President's brother-in-law, George Wallace, sought to run one camera-wielding journalist away from the airfield where the President's plane was about to land, summoned a Secret Service agent. But the agent told him that journalists were permitted to remain.

Marquis Childs discusses the self-discipline of the British which had led to relatively quick recovery after the war, with exports now exceeding pre-war 1938 monthly averages. It had taken four years following World War I for Britain to top 1913 levels of exports. A trade imbalance of 123 million dollars still existed, primarily because Britain had to import most of its food; but it was being kept to a minimum by strict rationing. Strikes had been few under the Labor Government.

Britons were also making sacrifices to send food to Europe. Even Ireland's Prime Minister Eamon DeValera gave praise to the discipline of the British.

Mr. Childs points out these strengths of the British by way of contrast to America, where far more discipline would be required to match the British effort.

The House was preparing to take up the question of the British loan, approved by the Senate. Passage of it would enable the British to open a considerable market with the United States. Quick action would demonstrate self-restraint by the House.

Samuel Grafton, writing again from Los Angeles, finds the conservatives of the country angry but venting that anger by way of destroying controls on prices and thus doing harm to the middle class, stretching even into the upper middle class, as evidenced by the effort afoot in Congress to raise salaries from $10,000 to $15,000. The Budget Director had just resigned, saying that he could no longer make ends meet on a $10,000 salary.

According to Time, the 50 million Americans in the lowest earnings bracket possessed only one percent of the nation's savings. The top 20 percent held 75 percent of the savings. So, he questions who would be able to buy the goods to be produced under the system, free of price controls.

The conservatives were shooting themselves in the foot. The theory that increased prices would cure the nation's ills now appeared as an illusion, impelled only by blind anger, not reason.

A letter points out that the Yadkin-Pee Dee River system had been allotted four dry dams at a cost just over seven million dollars. Compared to the expenditures on the Columbia River in Oregon and Washington, he says, North Carolina never would reach the economic level of more progressive states. It had been estimated that 10.8 million dollars could afford the region dams generating 931 million kilowatt hours of electricity.

A letter quotes the late Will Rogers regarding the recurring theme of disgruntlement of Presidents with the Senate. George Washington had proposed court martial. Thomas Jefferson wanted them imprisoned. Andrew Jackson said to hell with them, and got his wish. Abraham Lincoln had urged that God must have hated them as he made so few. Calvin Coolidge never let them know what he wanted and so they could not vote against him. President Hoover took them seriously and made thereby his only political mistake.

The page prints the "Box Score", the voting record of the North Carolina Congressional delegation for the week.

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.