The Charlotte News
Wednesday, October 1, 1947
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President had asked the American people to conserve 100 million bushels of grain, suggesting that if each American conserved a bushel of grain by serving fewer slices of bread each meal within the ensuing months, it would get the job done to feed Europe’s hungry during the winter. Most of the conservation, he stressed, would need come in reducing grains fed to cattle.
Thus, the issues for the 1948 campaign were joined: The Republicans, at least from the expression of Senator Taft, wanted Americans to eat less and reduce exports; the President favored eating less bread; Henry Wallace, milk for Hottentots. Governor Dewey was coyly remaining mum on the subject, per his usual stance, content to poise on the wedding cake, of which he may have been nibbling while hiding his zest.
The decision of NLRB counsel Robert Denham to impose on all members of any labor organization, as AFL and CIO, the prohibition, per Taft-Hartley, of use of NLRB services in effecting collective bargaining for failure of any officer of the organization to execute an affidavit of non-affiliation with the Communist Party was joined by the appeal of a local Board ruling in Baltimore of a decision to deny the AFL Brotherhood of Electrical Workers access to NLRB for the fact of the AFL executive board having, at the behest of John L. Lewis, not executed the affidavits.
The third member of the U.N. Security Council, to replace the three retiring nations, had still not been chosen in the showdown between the Ukraine and India, after nine ballots. The vote stood 32 to 24 in favor of the Ukraine, but a two-thirds majority of 36 of the 57 voting nations was required, less the three candidate nations. The voting was dropped temporarily and other business pursued. India’s delegate, Vijayalakshmi Pandit, stated that she would not withdraw India’s name from the contest. The Ukraine was seeking to replace Poland as a Soviet-bloc nation on the Security Council.
President Truman named UNC president Frank Porter Graham to represent the U.S. at the U.N. regarding the effort to resolve the Dutch East Indies crisis between the Netherlands Government and the Indonesian Government. The other two members of the committee of the Security Council were Paul Kirby of the Australian arbitration court and Paul Van Zeeland, former Belgian Foreign Minister.
Russia refused entry to twelve U.S. Senators from the Appropriations Committee and Assistant Secretary of State John Peurifoy, the latter intending to inspect the U.S. Embassy. The Soviet Foreign Ministry said that the country was not a fit subject for U.S. investigation. Senator Styles Bridges of New Hampshire, chairman of the Committee, said it raised questions as to how much longer the U.S. should allow indiscriminate admission of Soviet citizens.
In Britain, new austerity measures were imposed, virtually banning holiday travel, eliminating gasoline rations for 300 miles per month of pleasure driving, and boosting railway fares by 50 percent above pre-war levels, 16.25 percent over current fares. Previously, Britons had been allowed to spend 75 pounds annually in foreign countries, reduced September 1 to 35 pounds.
In Raleigh, leaders of the State Grange and the Good Health Association denied Agricultural Commissioner Kerr Scott’s charges made the previous day before two farm cooperative organizations, that the Good Health Program concentrated too heavily on establishing the four-year medical school and not enough on needs of rural communities for hospitals, that a cooperative had been enlisted the previous year in the propaganda efforts on behalf of the medical school. The Good Health Association replied that the medical school was intended in part to supply doctors for rural hospitals.
In any event, they named a reservoir for Mr. Scott after he was Governor and Senator.
His son, Robert, would also become Governor in 1969.
In Davenport, Iowa, a war widow’s body was found nude near the Mississippi River, stabbed ten times and run over by an automobile. A man said that the woman, from West Virginia, had shared a motel room with him and told him that she had gone out with other men, who were also being pursued by police for questioning. She had been living in Davenport since the previous February and working in a laundry. A number, believed to be her Social Security Number, was tattooed on one arm. Other tattoos were found on her chest, “Stanley” and “True Love”, beside which was depicted a snake with bare fangs. She had other tattoos, including “Rock of Ages” elsewhere and “Bill and Elsie” below that.
A representative of the North Carolina Social Hygiene Society told the Rotary Club of Goldsboro that 400 new cases of syphilis would be found in each 100,000 residents of the state during the year. He advocated education as the means of elimination of the disease. In Sweden, the program had reduced incidence to six per 100,000.
That
could also be the result of having an active ball bearings
A caption of a photograph tells of an eleven-year old boy in Medora, Ind., receiving a letter from the President wishing him a speedy recovery from burns he received when a model airplane he was building caught fire when the propeller lit a match igniting the glue.
Don’t
try that at home
In Philadelphia, a little white dog was sleeping quietly after 48 hours lost in the Philadelphia subway tunnels. Its owner was unknown. The dog had chased ahead of trains over the course of the two days and disrupted schedules, until it was finally cornered by the SPCA at the Allegheny Avenue station and taken to the kennel for a bath, some food, and sleep.
The New York Yankees led in the second game of the World Series 2 to 1 over the Brooklyn Dodgers after three innings. Allie Reynolds pitched for the Yankees and Vic Lombardi for the Dodgers. The Dodgers would wind up losing 10 to 3, to fall behind two games to nothing in the Series.
In
Los Angeles, the first helicopter to carry the U.S. mail would waft aloft also
from the roof of the post office actress Vivian Blaine
On the editorial page, “U.S. Protests Please the Reds” refers back to the earlier editorial in which The News made light of the Weekly Literary Gazette’s comparison of the President to Hitler, finding it not so insulting as the intolerable remark that the President wore his pants two inches shorter than the accepted standard. But the lampoon was not a yardstick followed by the State Department, which took genuine offense, protested to Russia, thereby giving to V. M. Molotov an opening to criticize the American press while refusing to retract the statement.
Surely, it concludes, the Russians were pleased and gloating at the U.S. bristling, the precise reaction of which their propaganda campaign contemplated production. The U.S. leaders had to know that protest would do no good and would elicit the response it did. Silence would have been more effective. But they probably knew also that an international power struggle could not be conducted so sensibly.
“Cutting Down the Overhead” takes issue with the various overhead cutting devices provided restaurants by equipment manufacturers: the overstuffed napkin dispenser which would barely dispense, the mustard dispenser which would hardly squirt, the sugar dumper which either dumped not at all or a whole load at once, the salt shaker with a moisture evaporating device in its lid, preventing dispensing for becoming clogged. Added to that was the narrow-necked catsup bottle and steak sauce bottle. All fouled the experience of trying to drink coffee or season a hamburger or hotdog. It was signal of the equipment manufacturer catering to buyers rather than users.
“The age of invention, it’s wonderful!”
“Issues Instead of ‘Mudslinging’” tells of Lt. Governor Stag Ballentine, toying with the idea of running for Governor in 1948, being the first potential candidate expressly to take issue with the strategy of announced candidate Charles Johnson, State Treasurer, that he could not be defeated. He charged that the effect of the campaign was to steer other candidates from the race. Mr. Johnson announced in reply that he would campaign on issues rather than personalities.
The piece does not view the Ballentine statement as any form of personal attack on Mr. Johnson, but merely seeking to open the door to opposition, not picked by a small group of Raleigh politicians.
As indicated, Agricultural Commissioner Kerr Scott, in the news for the first time the previous day re criticism before two farm cooperative organizations of the Good Health Program for stressing too much the establishment of the four-year medical school at Chapel Hill and not enough the rural health program, would be the next Governor.
A piece from the Asheville Citizen , titled “Let’s Look at the Record”, tells of prices rising twice as fast as production in the year since the abolition of price controls, tending to belie the theory that release of controls would lead to sufficient increased production to act as a brake on inflation. Some blamed the Republican Congress but the Congress was Democratically controlled when price controls were released in 1946. Senator Taft blamed the Administration; others blamed Congress.
It provides the voting records of the respective parties on ending controls: in the Senate, 31 Republicans and 18 Democrats in favor of the second control bill after the first had been vetoed in July, 1946, and 25 Democrats against; the amendment to decontrol grains and animal foods made from grains, 30 Republicans and 12 Democrats in favor, and 32 Democrats and 3 Republicans against; the amendment to extend OPA controls, 29 Republicans and 22 Democrats against, and 22 Democrats and 1 Republican in favor.
In the House: extending price control after the veto, 105 Republicans and 176 Democrats in favor, and 60 Republicans and 1 Democrat against.
While President Truman had lifted controls on food just before the 1946 election based on there being no means of effective control remaining after price control had been gutted by the extension bill, Democrats favored retention of price control and Republicans favored ending it.
The picture was clear if the parties stood on this basic statistical snapshot, but partisan debate tended toward confusion rather than clarity.
Tom Lynch of The News tells of North Carolina still being among the poorest states of the country, along with the other Southeastern states, despite its income having risen 159 percent since 1940. The state was still the eighth poorest state of the 48, now Ol’ 41 rather than “Ol’ 42”. He provides the statistics. The Southern states collectively averaged $801 per annum in per capita income versus a national average of $1,200.
The raw income gain was only $501 in North Carolina since 1940, compared to $770 in New York with only an 89 percent gain. The gains in the South were attributed primarily to rising farm income, expanding industry and the nationwide tendency toward inflation. Since rise in farm income was vulnerable to shifts, the South was in danger of losing its new prosperity. Thus, the solution appeared in further development and diversification of industry rather than continuing the one or two-crop system of farming. The large number of black wage earners in the South, who were below the national average, was a great drag on earnings of the region.
Intensifying vocational training and increasing productive know-how among the lowest income groups would tend to ameliorate the problem—even if some recalcitrant students might view it as a not no-how proposition and thus quit to pitch pennies for cigarettes.
Drew Pearson tells of the big-business appointments to the Army and Air Force branches of the Defense Department. The Wall Street firm of Dillon Read had contributed Secretary of Defense James Forrestal and General William Draper, Undersecretary of the Army. General Draper after the war had appointed to his staff former SS member Dr. Alexandre Kreuter, a former Dillon Read representative in Germany. The firm had contributed 200 million dollars to prewar Germany, most of it never realizing any profit for investors and most of it ultimately going to build up Hitler’s war machine. Placing Dr. Kreuter on staff directly violated the directive of General Eisenhower that no Nazis were to be so used. General Draper had urged new loans to Germany, apparently not learning the lesson of the late war.
Newly appointed Undersecretary for Air Arthur Barrows, also formerly of the U.S. Military Government in Germany, had issued a directive countering the American policy of building up small businesses in Germany by ordering that coal, iron, and steel be allocated to the larger, more efficient concerns, leaving out the small, inefficient operations. The directive was countermanded by General Lucius Clay.
General Harry Vaughan, the President’s military aide, had recommended in a magazine article that the National Guard be federalized and unified to make it more efficient.
The Department of Agriculture had released figures showing that the price of food consumed by Americans in 1947 would be 36 million dollars, compared to the price before the war of 18 million. Part of the increase was from increased consumption, Americans’ pocketbooks able to buy more than before the war. But over half of it was the result of increased prices. During the depths of the Depression, the food bill, by comparison, had been only 11 billion dollars.
Marquis Childs, in Salonika, Greece, tells of refugees from Thrace and Macedonia, where the war with the rebels was centered, crowding into Salonika, some having been present for more than a year, with no work and scant relief from the Government. He had observed a family with nine children living in a small room and the mother cooking in the hallway over an open fire on an overturned radiator. A half dozen other families lived under similar conditions. These refugees might be inclined to turn to Communism after another winter of such hardship. And these families were fortunate by comparison to the bulk of the approximately 250,000 refugees who were without proper shelter of any kind. The Government provided relief consisting only of the equivalent of 15 cents and a small ration of flour.
As
winter would set in, the fighting
The amnesty period offered to the guerrillas by the Sophoulis Government would last only a month and those partaking of it might number far fewer than the 50 percent predicted by the Government. Soviet propaganda preached over the radio that the Government was window dressing for American imperialism. The fact suggested that the Government and the amnesty program were succeeding. Some observers believed, however, that the Government was not working hard enough to propagandize to the contrary.
One of the primary inducements to the program would be the offer of a job, such as on the American road-building project. But the long series of delays in getting that program started was making it impossible to offer such jobs. The U.S. engineers were only still in the planning stages, with contracts being let and supervisors arriving daily.
It was not yet too late but getting late enough before winter would begin.
Samuel Grafton tells of Fascists gathering in black
garb, with arms raised in Nazi-style salute, every Sunday in London at Dalston
A similar sight had been repeated in Rome the previous Sunday.
These groups were not seeking to rekindle the past but responding to the split between America and Russia. The schism had given Fascism a sense of rebirth.
Of themselves, these street meetings were not important, but rather were indicators of the deterioration of life in such a time of division.
With it had come the rise of conservatism in America, giving many formerly disreputable reactionaries an influential voice in determining policy.
While it was customary for liberals to warn against such reaction and that thus America needed to get along with Russia, the warning, thinks Mr. Grafton, ought equally apply to Russia. The Russians could not continue with their expansionist policies and expect there to be no reaction from the West. So, the problem belonged with the Kremlin also.
The Russians appeared to have mobilized world conservatism against themselves as surely as Hitler had mobilized world liberalism against the Nazis.
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