The Charlotte News
Wednesday, October 15, 1947
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Dr. Vladimir Popovic, Yugoslav Ambassador to Moscow, addressing the U.N. political committee, charged that the Marshall proposal to overhaul U.N. machinery, to circumvent the Security Council veto through Assembly override in certain situations by having the political committee sit full time as a "Little Assembly", was designed to destroy cooperation between Russia and the West. He attacked John Foster Dulles personally for proposing the plan before the committee, accusing him of abandoning the principles established at the Charter Conference of spring, 1945.
The White House announced that the usual state dinners had been canceled to conserve food. Only the five state receptions, wherein punch and cookies were served, would take place.
A baking industry spokesman stated that the goal of saving three million bushels of grain monthly, as proposed by the Citizens Food Committee, was "astronomical and impossible" and that about the only way the baking industry could save grain was by ending its consignment program whereby it took back stale loaves not sold by grocers, for uses other than human food.
Undersecretary of State William Clayton announced his resignation, citing his wife’s health. The President accepted the resignation with reluctance.
An Atlantic hurricane struck Savannah, Ga., with 80 to 100 mph winds and then moved across Georgia, losing force rapidly. No casualties were reported in Savannah. One man was crushed by a falling tree limb in Charleston.
All 69 aboard the "Bermuda Sky Queen" flying boat, which had been forced the previous day to land in the Atlantic for lack of fuel from struggling against headwinds during a stormy trans-Atlantic crossing, were rescued by Coast Guard cutter after 18 of the passengers had spent nearly 24 hours in the plane, as the rescue personnel had been unable to reach them for choppy seas and high winds. The plane was headed from Ireland to Gander, Newfoundland. While the flying boat was unharmed, the cutter was planning to destroy it to avoid it becoming a menace to navigation.
UAW president Walter Reuther said that the Chicago announcement that a publicity firm had been hired to work for his nomination as the vice-presidential candidate on a Taft GOP ticket was the result of a publicity firm trying to discredit him and win votes at the national UAW convention to begin November 9. Mr. Reuther stated that his accurate appraisal of Mr. Taft had already been asserted the previous day, that he would rather see him in hell than in the White House.
In Havana, the dance hall girl on trial for the shooting murder of Mr. Mee, Chicago lawyer, aboard the latter's yacht, described Mr. Mee as a "very bad boy" who beat her repeatedly. She had told the Havana doctor for Mr. Mee during the five days before his death after the shooting that she was the lover of another man, aboard the yacht, because Mr. Mee wanted her to lie so that his father would not know what a really bad boy he was. She denied telling the police that she put two bullets in the gun and put it back in the drawer from which she then retrieved it to shoot him, claiming that he had drawn her sword used in her exotic dances and threatened to kill her with it. She also denied shooting from the hip in "Wild West" fashion.
In Memphis, movie censor Lloyd Binford, Baptist deacon, said that his three-man committee had approved the movie "Forever Amber", that it was a clean picture after all, despite early reports to the contrary. Mr. Binford’s committee had banned "Curley", a Hal Roach production, for showing black and white children playing together. It had also previously banned "The Outlaw", the Howard Hughes production, not because of Jane Russell but because of there being too much shooting in the picture.
The man who had won the News amateur photo contest and its $25 grand prize placed third nationally and received $100. The photograph is again printed on the page.
An Ohio man received the $1,500 first prize for his snapshot taken on Memorial Day of a forlorn baby sparrow seemingly lost among combat boots.
On the editorial page, "Charlotte Spreading Its Wings" tells of the Civil Aeronautics Board reversing its previous decision and granting a second trunk line to Charlotte to compete with Eastern Airlines. Good leadership in promoting the city’s banking commerce had resulted in the change of opinion by CAB.
"An 'Ideal' Newspaper for America" tells of nine Nieman Fellows at Harvard having developed a blueprint for a better American newspaper, saying that journalism had to face the reality of more responsibility or regulation. According to the Fellows, a reader revolt would take place eventually if power continued to be concentrated in the hands of a few, leading to a restriction of its rights.
While it did not mind the criticism, the piece thinks that most American newspapers on the scene already embodied most of the traits to which the Fellows thought journalism ought ideally to aspire. There was nothing novel in the approach taken by the Fellows.
"Voluntary Control May Do It" comments that while Washington cynics found the food conservation program getting off to a bad start with little compliance, it was too soon to throw in the towel on the program. The majority of the people could be relied upon to see ultimately the need for such sacrifice to feed Europe and keep it out of the hands of the Communists, while checking inflation at home. When the weight of public opinion would get behind the program, it would startle the Washington pessimists.
A piece from the Washington Post, titled "No Time for Love", remarks of the two women who had secreted themselves in the baggage area of a plane headed from Germany to the U.S. that they might reunite with their wartime sweetheart G.I.’s. Fortunately, they had been discovered in Frankfurt before they would freeze to death at high altitudes.
It finds it likely that such stories would fill books for some time to come, just as the Civil War had spawned a literature of the sort. It thought that a tale might even be woven around the fifteen Russian wives of British soldiers who were being barred by the Soviet Government from reuniting with their husbands because it was feared that "women talk too much".
Drew Pearson tells of Charles Luckman, chairman of the Citizens Food Committee, being ridiculed by eight Republican Senators, led by Wayne Morse of Oregon and Ed Thye of Minnesota, for the proposal of the eggless and poultryless Thursdays. But he managed to convince them of the wisdom of the plan by the end of the meeting. Senator Morse had objected to the plan for upsetting farmers. He objected because of huge surpluses of poultry in Government warehouses, which he urged be sent to Europe. But Mr. Luckman countered that grain was cheaper and more nutritional and thus desired more by Europeans than poultry. Senator Thye wanted the country to ship what it could best afford without undue sacrifice by farmers. He favored the sacrifice being spread over more sectors of the economy.
Senator Morse wanted more dried fruits sent to Europe and reminded that many beans, fruits, and peas had rotted during the year because canners had refused purchase based on fear of a glutted market. He thought that the Government should have bought up this produce and begun canning it. Mr. Luckman responded that he was not responsible for anything which had happened the previous summer, before he chaired the Committee.
Mr. Pearson notes that the Agriculture Department had prepared to start a program urging consumption of poultry to encourage more being sent to market and consumption therefore of less grain by the chickens. Thus the Department had been at odds with the President's announcement of poultryless Thursdays. The Department nevertheless went ahead with its program, and thus there would be likely more poultry on the market every day except Thursdays.
Samuel Grafton finds the best attitude by which to live during the crisis between Russia and the West to be to maintain a desire for peace. For if one were satisfied with a verbal attack on Russia, without wishing for some proposal for peace to go with it, then the person was already "partially mobilized inside." The person who wanted more evidence of Soviet expansion, who was accustomed to making points instead of peace, was similarly oriented.
And it was entirely appropriate, as the Comintern was reinvigorated, to find the same alignments within the Soviet-bloc countries, whose attitudes likewise seemed antagonistic to peace.
It was possible to become so engrossed in the match that the fact was lost that the game itself was bad.
The
only way to proceed in the crisis was to demand peace from both sides. "Nothing
The
nation which could ram home into world consciousness
Marquis Childs, in Paris, finds, with a fourth of the Congress touring Europe and the Near East, it had emerged as clear that the Marshall Plan, to be passed by Congress, would not be administered by the State Department. The diplomatic representation of the country had made a poor impression on the members, that the diplomats could not be counted on to insure that American resources were utilized wisely. The most constructive idea was for the Plan to be administered by a Government corporation, similar to RFC. It would be authorized to issue non-interest bearing bonds for funding of the Plan, to lessen the immediate impact on the taxpayers. Repayment would be made in raw materials rather than in dollars and would not begin until after rehabilitation of Europe was advanced.
The problem was whether such a corporation could get along with the diplomats and whether it would lead to divided authority, as was already plaguing the aid program in Greece. One thought was to make the ambassador of the given country receiving the aid a member of the board of directors of the corporation.
Such a plan was still under formulation but, when complete, it would enjoy wide Congressional support, at least in the House and likely also in the Senate.
The problem with the Plan generally was the perception that it would exert too much of a hand in the sovereign affairs of the nations which desired the aid.
A letter writer says that he liked Sam Spade but that Walter Winchell was at his "venomous best" a couple of Sundays previously when he dared Mr. Vishinsky and Mr. Molotov to deny that 70 percent of the world’s capital wealth was owned by the 7 percent of the population who comprised the U.S. The reason for that about which he then goes on is your guess.
A letter from a minister tells of a black church in Monroe having interracial services for the first time. He finds it a good first step for abolishing "isms". He names the ministers and laymen who had organized the action, doing something concretely positive for race relations, not merely talking about it. The program, he says, had been a success.
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