The Charlotte News
Friday, August 2, 1946
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the House sustained the President's veto of the tidal oil lands bill which had given to the states control over the Federal lands, undermining a pending Supreme Court decision on the matter. The vote was 189 in favor of overriding the veto and 95 against, 86 of whom were Democrats, 17 votes short of the two-thirds required for override. The veto had occurred the day before, the President citing as the reason the pending high Court decision.
A New York financier told the War Investigating Committee that it had loaned $5,000 to Representative Andrew May in 1941 at the request of Murray Garsson, the munitions manufacturer under scrutiny by the committee, and the firm had not yet been repaid the money though the note was originally due in four months.
In Tennessee, Senator Kenneth McKellar easily won renomination to a sixth term.
James Jarvis, Managing Editor of the Chattanooga Times, reports that at Athens, Tenn., he and four members of his staff had witnessed violence at a polling place and managed to get away with a photograph despite an attempt by the deputy sheriff to seize the camera film. They gave him a blank photographic plate.
The violence stemmed from conflict between supporters of a bipartisan slate of candidates, all of whom were former G.I.'s, and a politically powerful State Senator's candidates, all running for local offices. The two officials at the polling place who were to oversee the counting of the ballots for the G.I.'s were thrown bodily through a plate glass door, apparently by the deputy sheriff who had his gun drawn as he exited the door after them. Observers thought that the deputy and another armed officer might shoot the two veterans as they walked back across the street with their backs to the officers, but a third deputy grabbed the arm of one of the other deputies to prevent discharge.
A bit of a Greek saga, perhaps set in Assisi.
The announcement this date of the election of the former-G.I. ticket brought quiet to Athens after a six-hour bloody gun battle around the jail the previous day, beginning in the afternoon and continuing until 3:00 a.m. A near riot had taken place. It began when sheriff's deputies moved a pair of ballot boxes to the jail the previous afternoon. The former G.I.'s then disarmed the deputies, beat them, and shoved them into automobiles for a "quick ride" downtown. The crowd then moved on the jail at 9:00 p.m., at which time they were fired upon by some 21 deputies still inside. The former G.I.'s then returned fire. Eventually, the deputies surrendered after six hours. No one was killed in the melee.
In Georgia, Dekalb and Fulton Counties filed a lawsuit contending that the county unit-voting system was violative of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, challenging the election of Eugene Talmadge who lost the popular vote to James Carmichael but won the county unit-votes which favored less populous counties over the urban areas. A suit was also filed by a voter on behalf of Congresswoman Helen Mankin on the same basis, challenging election of her opponent who received fewer popular votes. The Federal Judge had already denied temporary injunctive relief to bar certification of the results until the matter could be determined substantively, but set a hearing on it for August 16.
Both houses of Congress approved freezing the Social Security tax at one percent. It was scheduled automatically to rise to 2.5 percent on January 1, 1947.
Harold Ickes discusses the tendency of the United States to follow the lead of the British with respect to Jewish immigration to Palestine, solicitous to the oil interests of Saudi Arabia, while Poland had recently carried out a bloody pogrom at Kielce. The American Government was subsidizing Saudi Arabia to the tune of 1.5 million dollars through the Export-Import Bank and Lend-Lease or the RFC.
The Saudis were applying for a loan of ten million dollars from the Export-Import Bank to be secured by the royalties to be paid the Saudis by the Arabian-American Oil Co., owned by Standard Oil of California and Texaco. The company had already advanced royalties of twelve million dollars to King Ibn Saud. Mr. Ickes, a year earlier, had refused to provide his imprimatur to a twenty million dollar loan sought by the Saudis.
Thus far, with the Government following too much the lead of the British, also heavily subsidizing the Saudis, the President's insistence a year earlier on carrying into effect the recommendation of the Anglo-American Committee on Palestine that 100,000 Jews be permitted to immigrate to Palestine had not been implemented.
In Washington, an estimated 60 persons were injured in a commuter bus crash at the Memorial Bridge over the Potomac. During the morning rush hour, the bus went through a guard rail and landed upside down on a driveway 30 feet below. It was headed from Arlington to Washington.
Justice Robert Jackson returned to Washington from the Nuremberg trials. He expected to return to Germany in mid-September for the verdict. He refused to comment on the Court controversy with Justice Hugo Black, initiated by his letter to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees on June 10, accusing Justice Black of refusing to recuse himself in a mining case in 1945 despite his former law firm representing the UMW.
In Mineola, N.Y., a black man confessed to the slaying of a socially prominent woman, Marjory Church Logan, and raping and shooting her daughter on July 24 in their Long Island home. The daughter had described him at the time as "starey-eyed". The man was employed by a neighbor.
In West Hartlepool, England, Adolf Hitler's yacht Grille
A fire broke out in a Philadelphia steam bath and thirteen women were forced to exit the building with only thin sheets adorning their otherwise nude bodies. The firemen were unable to save their clothes.
They likely had plenty of poly wrap available though. No need to worry about catching the death of cold
On the editorial page, "The Search for a City Manager" comments on Charlotte's effort to find a replacement for City Manager Flack, leaving to take the same post in Durham. The salary had been $12,500 per year for the position and should attract an expert in city administration. It advises the City Council deliberately to shop around until the right person could be found, though some candidates were being considered presently.
"From Shocked Disbelief to Bitterness" examines an article by Richard Neuberger in the New York Times Magazine, titled "This Is Not the America I Fought For", in which he expresses his shocked disbelief at moral decay at home. He viewed the indecision of Congress as merely symptomatic of the problem, not its source.
He had found ordinary people in his hometown engaged in a mad dash for money and observed universal paralysis of the community's conscience. Friends defended their actions on the basis that everyone else was seeking the fast buck without compunction. Personal responsibility appeared to have been abandoned.
The rude awakening for the veteran came when he went in search of a place to live. Rental agents ignored his veterans' button and solicited bribes or the purchase of worthless furniture for obtaining accommodations. Builders told him he would have to wait two years to build a house, though the racetrack outside of town neared completion and movie theaters, automobile dealerships, factories, and saloons were going up.
The veteran wondered why the country which had furnished housing so quickly for the war effort could not now find it within its capacity to house the veteran, forced to take up residence with relatives or place his family in a small single-room apartment.
The calm acceptance by Americans of graft and corruption also ate at him. The Government's payment of unemployment compensation, not enough on which to live, or its providing him with a loan to purchase housing which was non-existent for the money, offered no solace. Nor did the G.I. Bill offer more than an education at an overcrowded college or university which might not accept his application. His terminal leave bonus did not enable him to buy the things he needed or wanted.
It suggests that bitterness would soon follow such indignation and it would be a wonder in coming years if the increasingly politically powerful veteran did not reject the free enterprise system which had rendered him a pauper after serving his country, while allowing those who did not serve to prosper.
"The UAW Calls a Conference" comments on a conference called by the automotive workers union to discuss ways to increase production. Kaiser-Frazer, Willys, and Studebaker had accepted the invitation, but Ford and Chrysler had turned it down. Ford had done so because of the continuing strikes in parts manufacturing plants.
The conference appeared to be a genuine offer by labor to try to break the cycle of inflation, as wage increases had already been offset by higher prices, the result of lower production relative to demand.
While Ford might legitimately suspect Walter Reuther of seeking positive public relations in advance of a new wave of strikes, its refusal to participate would only encourage the behavior which it suspected as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
If both sides did not put away their differences to conquer inflation, everyone would wind up paying.
Drew Pearson, writing from the Paris Peace Conference, finds the United States too focused on such matters as resolution of Trieste, such it had lost the vision established by the Atlantic Charter in August, 1941, the determination to spread through the world the Four Freedoms. He also warned that any treaty executed at Paris would only be as good as the resolve of the nations to enforce it.
It might not be so bad if Secretary Byrnes did not return with any treaty, especially if it were one which would only add to the world unrest. The best treaty would be one opening doors from the West to the Soviet Union, to afford mutual understanding. Open travel, exchange of academics, free flow of information were all necessary concomitants to achieve this end. While it was unrealistic to think that Mr. Molotov would agree to such a treaty, the effort would bring the spotlight to bear on the problem, to call the Russian bluff regarding its dissemination of propaganda to its own people that Americans wanted to massacre Russian peasants, creating an atmosphere of intense nationalism and isolation in Russia.
The continued microscopic focus on the less global issues had resulted in loss of U.S. leadership on the world stage, without stress on the moral ideals represented in the Four Freedoms. Mr. Molotov had proved adept at leading Mr. Byrnes away from those larger issues.
The proposed treaty to be signed largely was without purpose, simply a few matters which Mr. Molotov wanted resolved. Austria was off the table and so the Russians could continue to send troops to both Austria and Yugoslavia, enabling Russia to find an excuse to move into Trieste the day after the U.S. and British troops would depart.
Marquis Childs begins by stating: "Indignation over the Garsson-May munitions business boils up like hot tar out of a blistering pavement. It is an easy Summer-time emotion, calculated to take the mind off current problems."
He thinks it important to consider the point of view in the War Investigating Committee hearings of the ordinary enlisted man who had performed the fighting in the war and would have to fight the next war, which some in the country seemed anxious to precipitate.
The professional soldiers contended that the Garsson brothers' profits were nothing compared to the vast sums spent during the war by industry under war contracts. They dismissed the notion of future scandals as the committee had thus far come up with nothing larger than the Garsson matter.
They felt that it was bad that the 4.2-in. mortar shells produced by the Garssons had prematurely detonated, killing many American soldiers, but tended also to dismiss this aberration as normal in warfare, that the hurried production would produce inevitably some defective product. These professionals were disturbed by the notion that such exposes could serve to work to disarm the country and thus serve the interests of the Communists.
Mr. Childs recommends, however, soul-searching in spite of the summer-time emotions, to take into account the feelings of the enlisted man.
He reports that during two tours of the battlefronts during the war, he had seen much extravagance by the generals, setting up chateux and fancy hotels as headquarters with retinues of servants, traveling aboard special trains and planes. The luxury had been resented by the average G.I.
But the miracle was, he continues, that there was not more of this type of conduct, that selfless men such as General Omar Bradley had come to the fore.
Little had been said in the committee hearings about the real fault laying behind Andrew May, the seniority system which automatically vested power in such men as Mr. May, not by particular level of competence or expertise or knowledge, but simply based on the length of time in Congress. Mr. May was not fit to be chairman of the House Military Affairs Committee.
Little had been said also of the lobbying effort which had obtained abrogation of the 1872 law on contract renegotiation to adjust profits. That inevitably had come about from pressure by big business.
He cautions that the 1934-35 munitions investigation had led to continued disarmament as the Nazi war machine was being built. He urges that the error not be repeated.
Samuel Grafton, preparing to take a one-month vacation, writes his last column from Los Angeles, warning not to place much stock in the Paris Peace Conference, limited to establishing treaties with Hungary, Italy, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Finland. Decisions of the 21 nations present were subject to review by the Big Four. It was not a conference to reshape the world.
Nor was it even sensible to call it a "peace conference" in the conventional sense, as the Big Four were not at peace. Russia wanted the Balkans determined in a manner conducive to their desired ends of establishing buffer zones against future attacks from the West. The conference would in fact only be establishing some form of equilibrium, a balance of power. As long as the West and Russia quarreled, the "peace" to be shaped would reflect that querulousness.
As an example, under Russian pressure, the West had determined to end UNRRA relief to the Balkans at the end of the year, thus making the constructed peace at Paris one without the prospect of food.
Until the smaller nations could summon the Big Four to a conference to explain and try to resolve their differences, there could be no genuine peace conference.
A letter writer from Phoenix, the executive secretary of the Veterans Protective & Welfare Association, comments on his reading the letters in The News regarding the "rocking-chair money"
He argues that the young veterans collecting the unemployment needed it and deserved it, that their compatriots who remained behind in the United States had acquired lucrative war jobs, that the $27 jobs which the veteran found awaiting him were hardly encouraging of confidence.
The heroes who fought the war deserved more, especially in the face of the revelations of profiteering in the Garsson combine. He favors giving the veterans $100 per week and making the profiteers pay the bill.
A letter from Inez Flow, Dry representative, cites statistics on drunk driving in North Carolina, 2,475 arrests for the year, and total liquor sales for June being 2.4 million dollars, an increase of $740,000 from the previous June. She asks rhetorically for the solution to the growing menace on the roads, which Governor Gregg Cherry had estimated to account for 100 fatalities per month.
The editors respond that the solution obviously would not be prohibition, as per capita drunk driving arrests were distributed nearly equally between wet and dry counties.
A letter advocates the same kind of action in America as that taken in Russia and Canada against profiteering manufacturers who produced defective shells leading to the deaths during war of the country's own soldiers
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