The Charlotte News

Monday, October 27, 1947

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Russia's anti-warmongering proposal was defeated by the U.N. General Assembly by a vote on one provision of 28 to 9, with 18 abstentions, on another, by 42 to 6, with 6 abstentions, and on a third by a vote of 40 to 7 with seven abstentions. France, Australia, and Canada then proposed a new resolution on the subject, which the U.S. indicated it would support provided it was amended. At the last minute, Russia had sought to bolster the original resolution's chances by dropping its language accusing the U.S., Greece, and Turkey of warmongering under the Truman Doctrine.

In Paris, General Charles De Gaulle called for dissolution of the National Assembly and general elections, based on the outcome of the municipal elections the previous week which had given the Gaullists a 40 percent plurality. The Communists charged that he was trying to set up a reactionary dictatorship, that he was motivated by a desire to obtain personal power. The Gaullists had not done as well in the rural vote, held the previous day, as in the urban voting a week earlier.

Socialist Premier Paul Ramadier was planning to ask Parliament the following day for a vote of confidence in his newly reshuffled Cabinet.

In Warsaw, it was reported that Polish opposition leader and head of the Peasant Party, Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, had fled the country in fear of internment or death at the hands of the Communist Government. He believed that he was targeted by the Government for the same treatment given to Bulgarian opposition leader Nikola Petkov, hanged for treason in Sofia a month earlier for opposing the Bulgarian Government.

In Washington, HUAC voted to hold screenwriter John Howard Lawson in contempt for refusing to answer questions regarding whether he had ever been a member of the Communist Party, stating that it was a violation of his Constitutional rights so to inquire—an accurate statement. The subcommittee action would have to be approved by the full Committee at a later time. At that point, Mr. Lawson would be subject to Federal prosecution for contempt of Congress.

HUAC, of course, was acting in contempt of democracy, the Constitution and the people of the United States. The part of its membership pressing for such investigations had not read so well the First Amendment prohibition against government interference with the right of peaceable assembly, with its necessarily implied concomitant right of freedom of association. Political avarice and ambition, combined with intractable adherence to positions conceived to facilitate the id of advancement, can render, however, a person's reading abilities suddenly askew, retarded to pre-school levels, in alignment with the views of his or her most ardent political supporters, inclined as they are to perform the puppetry of their masters, desirous of accumulation of material wealth, more easily acquired where free competition is restricted by semi-feudal conditions and a permament underclass maintained, down on the farm or in the factory, in ignorance of anything smacking of collective action. They failed to realize that the United States could never have come to be without insistence on that very right of freedom of assembly and association in the formation of the Declaration of Independence at Philadelphia. It remains, to anyone genuinely not inclined toward totalitarian forms of government, the sustaining spirit of democracy in the country, that which works with far greater strength than force of arms to preserve it through time.

A Pan American World Airways Clipper, a DC-4, had disappeared on Sunday near Ketchikan, Alaska, with 18 aboard, 13 of whom were passengers. Search for the plane had been hampered by bad weather, but conditions were improving. The plane had last radioed that extreme turbulence was preventing a contemplated instrument landing.

In Athens, Greece, a Swedish ABA airline transport with at least 43 persons aboard had reportedly crashed into Mt. Hymettos the previous night, killing all aboard.

In Edinburgh, Scotland, a train bound for London jumped the rails, killing 23 people and injuring 70. It was the second major rail disaster in Britain in three days, following the collision in London's South Croydon on Friday of two commuter trains, resulting in 31 deaths and at least 60 injured, later reports indicating a hundred.

The death toll had reached 22 from the forest fires fanned by strong winds across New England, decimating the residential areas of Bar Harbor, Maine, and six nearby villages on Friday and Saturday, leaving 32 million dollars worth of damage. Four of the dead were in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and another three in Michigan, the remainder in Maine.

Near Manila, a strong earthquake was recorded of 40 seconds duration, but no casualties or damage were reported.

In Shelby, N.C., the Grand Jury was considering a murder indictment against the Highway Patrolman who, on August 19, had killed the Cherryville Police Chief after the Patrolman stopped him for drunk driving and, according to the Patrolman, lunged at him with a knife, cutting his arm, whereupon the Patrolman fired, killing the Chief. The daughter of the Chief, present at the scene of the killing, had hired former Congressman and Judge Sam J. Ervin to be her private attorney to press the charge of murder before the Grand Jury. The trial of the Patrolman was set to begin on Wednesday.

In Charlotte, jury selection started for the trial of one of the two city employees accused of embezzling money collected from parking meters. The second defendant pleaded guilty. The remaining defendant was the chief safety inspector for the City. It was the first such trial of a City employee in Charlotte in 20 years.

Watch your parking meters.

The 2.5 million dollar bond election for a new municipal auditorium was to take place the following day in Charlotte. Be sure and vote.

Dick Young of The News tells of six names being pulled in the City Police Court from a list of 95 repeat offenders for drunkenness, those with six or more arrests, and the six were given stiff sentences, two receiving six months each on the roads, another two six months each, suspended, a fifth, two days in jail, and the sixth had her case continued until the following day.

It reminds that it was Valentine's Day, 1778 when John Paul Jones and the American Navy first encountered a foreign salute of guns, given by the French. He enjoyed it so much that he had the ships sail through it again the following day.

The piece provides its on salute to the largest and most well-equipped Navy remaining in the world.

As in all walks of life, Hollywood had its share, no doubt, of Communists, but merely demonstrating that fact was far from proving that they had managed to foist on the public their views through injecting them subliminally or otherwise into movie fare.

The piece thinks that without such proof, Hollywood, already living in a fishbowl, should be left to enjoy what little shreds of privacy it had remaining.

But look here, you get them cowboys out der on the range in one of them modern westerns they make nowadays for Saturday night here, sittin' by the campfire out dere a-talkin' up der poor wages and all. Well, what's a feller to think but strike? And dat dere is the seeds, right dere at the campfire, of Commonism. Then in them dramas, they start to playin' some of dat negro music, which is the beat of ye Commonism. You got to watch them movies. They'll get into your central nervous system and give you the willies, just like exhaust fumes gettin' inside the heater pipe o' your car. Anything beyond your Walt Disney, maybe, and a few o' them others, like the Tom Mix, and, why, you better stay away, pardner. You'll become Commonist, sure as the world.

He says that such a spontaneous action by the people could not have occurred in Russia, as everything was controlled by the Government. The shipment would enable positive publicity and generate goodwill toward America.

Teamsters president Dan Tobin had agreed to provide crews to pack the boxcars, hauled for free by Southern Pacific Railroad. Other railroads were also participating. Harry Warner of Warner Brothers Studios and George Skouras of 20th Century Fox were organizing the train. Numerous national civic organizations, including Rotary, Kiwanis Clubs and Lions Clubs, were handling the collection of food along the route.

He provides the route and the types of food most desired and its required packaging to avoid spoliation. Bulk wheat, wheat flour, dried beans, dried peas, sugar, evaporated milk, macaroni and spaghetti were the favored items. Food packed in glass could not be shipped and canned goods generally contained too much water to be shipped economically overseas.

Long-term expenditures were being concentrated in South Africa to develop it as a major source of raw materials.

The Army was being cut to a force of approximately 200,000 men, prewar strength.

British forces were extended still three to four times that of the sustainable complement in peacetime. All British forces were slated to be removed from Palestine in the ensuing months. When the Army cuts were complete, the responsibility would fall to the U.S. to pick up the slack. Some top British policy-makers believed that the evacuation would result in Palestine becoming Communist. But American firms had a stake in Near East and Far East oil, as did the Navy.

The small contingent of British troops still in Greece were also scheduled to be removed soon. The removal of that remaining force, however, could have serious repercussions in Greece and throughout the Balkans.

Britain also had indicated inability to continue its prior commitment to pay 320 million dollars annually for its occupying force in Germany. It was likely that a lump sum would be paid for current costs, with that being understood as the final payment possible.

Britain had a two billion dollar deficit in dollars, and by the prior agreement, the payments for the occupation force were supposed to be made in dollars or Sterling convertible to dollars.

The top officials in Britain did not believe that war with Russia was imminent or that Russia wanted war.

As most of the world lived in abject poverty, it could be disastrous for America's foreign policy if it became the country's lot to advocate for the wealthy, leaving advocacy for the poor to Russia.

One of the central questions not being answered by the HUAC inquiry was why Hollywood, with all its wealth, tended toward the left. The best explanation Adolphe Menjou could muster was that they were crazy.

But, parenthetically, he openly advocated Texans killing on sight all Communists. Mr. Menjou, incidentally, died on October 29, 1963.

The underlying question was what kind of fear was present in the post-war times which produced such results as the leftist trend in Hollywood. The more the Committee expanded its definition of Communism, the more the question pressed for an answer. A more searching inquiry, suggests Mr. Grafton, would seek to find out what caused large numbers of people to avoid conformance to the conservative view.

He believes that social equality and "racial amalgamation" were out of the question for black citizens.

He also favors the regional concept for other areas, such as providing hydro-electric power.

Framed Edition

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