The Charlotte News

Tuesday, October 28, 1947

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Russia had called upon the U. N. political committee to order withdrawal of all American and Russian troops from Korea by January 1, 1948. The U.S. had called for U.N.-supervised elections in both the Russian and American zones of Korea by the end of March. Andrei Gromyko charged the U.S. with delaying negotiations for Korean independence, as John Foster Dulles blamed Russia for the delay. Russia wanted representatives of the Korean people invited to participate in the U.N. debate. Mr. Dulles claimed that Russia had sought to exclude such representatives, except those of the Democratic People's Front, from participation in the joint Soviet-American Commission.

Secretary of State Marshall had regarded the Soviet proposal, made originally in September, to leave a power vacuum in Korea, which would deprive the people of free elections. The U.S. proposed a temporary commission, with its membership determined by the U.N., to observe the elections and be available for consultation, to make recommendations to the U.N. for maintaining peace, while a new government was implemented. Russia had opposed inclusion of the Korean issue on the U.N. agenda and had maintained that the resolution was to be determined solely between the U.S. and Russia.

In Washington, screenwriter Dalton Trumbo refused to answer questions of HUAC regarding whether he had ever been a Communist, standing, justly, on his Constitutional rights of freedom of assembly and association. He received loud applause when he left the witness table. The committee voted to cite him for contempt, as it had the previous day regarding screenwriter John Howard Lawson, who followed the same course.

While the Vinson Court would decline review of the two cases following Court of Appeals affirmance of the convictions and sentences of each defendant to a year in jail, the Warren Court would confront the issue head-on in 1957 in another case, Watkins v. U.S., 354 U.S. 178, reversing 6 to 1 findings of guilt for contempt of Congress, and restricting the right of HUAC to inquire regarding past and present association and other private matters, absent a showing of relevance to a properly circumscribed legislative purpose of Congress and providing adequate notice to the witness, upon objection for pertinency, of both the subject of inquiry and the question's relevance to it before requiring the witness to answer. HUAC, it determined, had not fulfilled these requirements, and its stated legislative purpose in its authorizing legislation, especially that extending its life, had been too broad to permit definition and circumscription of its legislative purpose. The only dissent in the case was that of Justice Tom Clark, former Attorney General, who found the restrictions set forth by the majority to be unworkable in practice and, in the particular case, that the Committee had not transgressed any line of privacy protected by the Constitution. Justices Harold Burton and Charles Whittaker took no part in the decision, the latter only recently having joined the Court.

The Watkins case, incidentally, would be decided 45 days after the death of Senator Joseph McCarthy and exactly 17 years prior to the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington by operatives of C.R.E.E.P.

Roy Brewster of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees & Moving Picture Machine Operators also testified this date before HUAC, stating that there had been efforts by the Communists in Hollywood to capture the union and to control the movie industry. He said that the plan had come dangerously close to success but had failed.

Senator Scott Lucas of Illinois praised Senator Robert Taft for taking the position that the special session of Congress called by the President to convene November 17 could take action on prices and foreign emergency aid by December 19, in advance of Christmas, per the President's schedule.

The Citizens Food Committee estimated that, based on industry pledges, it was 35 percent of the way to its goal of saving a 100 million bushels of grain for European relief during the winter. The remainder, it said, had to come from sacrifice by the public, and farmers not feeding their livestock so much grain.

British Opposition Leader Winston Churchill urged to Commons that it reject socialism as practiced by the Labor Government and reinstitute free enterprise as in the United States, claiming that Government restrictions on the economy were paralyzing initiative. He stated that with the Fuel Minister having recommended recently that Britons take fewer baths to conserve coal, it was no wonder that the Labor Government was "getting increasingly into bad odor." He accused the Laborites of being "authoritarian" and urged that a general election be held.

Deputy Prime Minister Herbert Morrison termed the speech "dreadfully reactionary".

In Brazil, the Justice Ministry was informed by the Governor of Guapore, a frontier territory, that Communist elements had captured the Bolivian border town of Guayara.

Not that. As the old saw went: "So goes Guayara, so the world."

Charles Haslet of the Associated Press reports that Congressman Marion Bennett of Ohio, just returned from the Congressional tour of Europe, claimed that several American soldiers had been killed by Communists in 63 incidents of aggression in the Trieste area, but that the matter had been hushed up by a "brass curtain of American censorship". The Army declined comment and there had been no previous reports of American personnel killed in the area.

Excerpts of the wartime journals of the late General George S. Patton, Jr., had just been published in abstracted form in the Saturday Evening Post, containing heavy criticism of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and top American officers regarding the conduct of the war in Europe. He stated his belief that the war could have been shortened and thousands of lives saved but for the errors of these commanders, especially those resulting from General Montgomery's influence on General Eisenhower and his staff at SHAEF. He opined that his Third Army forces could have crossed the Rhine in the late summer of 1944 after penetrating as far as Verdun, had it not been for a change in policy by General Montgomery on August 29, 1944. After General Patton had ordered attacks on Verdun and Commercy, everything "seemed rosy" until it was reported that the 140,000 gallons of promised gasoline was not going to arrive the following day. The reason was a change in policy by SHAEF, implemented, in his opinion, by General Montgomery. He believed it the "momentous error of the war". Had he not been so stopped by General Eisenhower's decision to back General Montgomery's move to the north, the Third Army, he thought, could have pushed forward in the early days of September and ended the war.

Efforts to locate the Pan Am DC-4 with 18 persons aboard, which had disappeared Sunday afternoon in bad weather in the area of Ketchikan, Alaska, continued without success.

In Maine, the forest fires which had killed fifteen people and left 30 million dollars in damage were largely under control, save one fire. Bar Harbor residents, 300 year-round homes of whom had been destroyed, began returning to the resort village. It was reported that across the state, 1,148 homes, 851 of which were permanent, had been destroyed.

In Chicago, a sixteen-year old girl was being held on the charge of fatally stabbing her eighteen-year old sister with a pair of scissors after an argument over clothing and boyfriends. She said that she loved her sister but got angry and threw at her whatever was handy. She threw the scissors from a distance of eight feet with the blades open, hitting her sister in the chest.

Tom Watkins of The News reports of the jury having been empaneled to hear the trial of the case against the director of the City Safety Inspection Department for embezzlement of parking meter collections, with testimony to begin during the afternoon session of court. The piece names the twelve jurors—not giving their phone numbers or addresses that you could call and give them your views on the case.  Judge George Patton was presiding. He instructed the jurors to be as Caesar's wife.

Sports editor Ray Howe finds Duke to be the team of the week for ending Wake Forest's undefeated streak at four games on the previous Saturday, 13-6. Wake Forest would go 2-3 the rest of the way, to finish 6-4. Duke, 4-0-1 at this juncture, would lose three of its last four games and tie the other.

Our prediction for the coming weekend is 41-32.

Such entanglements could be avoided if gifts were placed under a special stamp that they might travel duty free, a practice followed during the war.

Americans were sending food and goods overseas through charitable organizations, constituting an important part of relief. The "Friendship Train" suggested by Drew Pearson would start collecting food across the nation the following month. The Cotton Manufacturers Association had called on members to contribute four million square yards of fabric to Europe. Such voluntary citizen efforts, it posits, should be supported in official policy.

At the same time, the local Solicitor had announced that the State's McDougle Act would be invoked against repeat liquor offenders, whereby those defendants who had been convicted of drunkenness six times would receive harsher sentences of up to two years on the roads. It thinks the drunks would not make very good road workers and, with penalties strengthened, would seek new ways to avoid apprehension.

The piece hopes that the City and County officials would hear Rev. Hauss's plaint.

The move recognized that there had been too much shouting back and forth and not enough action to take care of the problems of Europe. The resolution,it thinks, should make it clear to Americans to practice more restraint in expressions on foreign relations. The American delegation had discussed matters in a calm and deliberate fashion during the debate, no longer engaging in the tit-for-tat exchange of vitriol with Andrei Vishinsky.

It bespoke the fact that the country no longer needed to serve notice of intention to walk tall and carry a big stick in the world. There was work to be done and those who engaged in such big talk needed to take time off and hunt game, go mountain climbing, or other such pursuits.

Amid the flashbulbs of the coverage of the HUAC hearings on Hollywood, scant attention was being paid to a Supreme Court case just argued the previous week regarding FTC allegations that the cement industry was engaged in price fixing by equalizing prices nationally via a points system to fit the regional differential in freight rates. Steel utilized the same system and so the case had far-reaching consequences. Former OSS head "Wild Bill" Donovan argued the case for the Cement Institute, backed by U. S. Steel.

Mr. Pearson provides some of the more colorful exchange in oral argument. During the colloquy, when Justice Frank Murphy sought to ask a question, former Governor of New York Nathan Miller, appearing for the cement industry, violated Court etiquette by blustering forth that he had only five minutes to argue his case, thus refused to hear the inquiry, a bad move.

But in New York, some say, fixing prices in cement has other connotations. Perhaps that is why the Justice Department attorney, Charles Weston, removed his shoe during the presentation and began stretching his toes.

At least he did not bang it on the table as demonstration of displeasure.

A Smith, Barney attorney passed around Mr. Pearson's column regarding the meeting between the Wall Street firms' attorneys and the Justice Department attorneys to try to head off the investigation into anti-trust violations by the firms. The Wall Street attorneys were not pleased to read that the President and Attorney General Tom Clark were determined to crack down on the monopolistic practices among the "17 Club" banks. They did not convince the Government attorneys that their combination was legal.

That's a relief. Our faith in humanity is preserved.

Many of the labor leaders in Hollywood were Republicans, a unique situation. George Murphy, Robert Montgomery, Morrie Ryskind, and Charles Brackett, former presidents of SAG or SWG, were all active in AFL. And they were organizing to defeat Harry Truman in the coming election.

Mr. Riesel had personally heard, however, Mr. Reagan and his wife, Jane Wyman, speak enthusiastically of the New Deal. (Mr. Reagan, a Democrat, would publicly endorse the President and Mayor Hubert Humphrey of Minneapolis, for the Senate, in the 1948 election.) Yet the Reagans remained close friends with the aforementioned and Edward Arnold in the leadership of the Guild.

Political insiders in Hollywood believed James Roosevelt would soon run for office. (He would run unsuccessfully for Governor in 1950 against Earl Warren. In 1954, he would run successfully for Congress, where he would serve five terms, having been elected the last time just after the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis and just before the death of his mother.)

Mr. Riesel does not understand why actor Robert Taylor had complained so much before HUAC the previous week about acting in "The Song of Russia", as he could have turned the part down rather than be party to what he subsequently perceived as Red propaganda. Walter Pidgeon had turned down a role in the film.

The Screen Writers Guild, anti-Communist, had changed its rules to prevent matters of business being raised at its meetings without notice being given at the beginning and after a certain hour, having observed that the Communists came early to meetings and then stayed late to try to pass business after members had departed.

The CIO was set to support fully the Marshall Plan.

Walter Reuther appeared to have a majority of UAW support to continue as president and solidify his hold on the leadership, with his supporters set to take all important offices at the convention in November.

There were nine suits outstanding against unions pursuant to Taft-Hartley. Seven were brought by employers and claimed a total of less than 1.5 million dollars in damages. The other two were filed by unions against other unions, claiming eighteen million dollars in damages.

In the Senate, 28 of the 68 Senators who voted for override were up for re-election, but only nine were from states with significant labor votes.

Some of the members whom labor opposed might be defeated on other issues, but insofar as political action by AFL and CIO, there were reasonable chances to defeat only about one-fifth of the members who supported Taft-Hartley.

It quotes section 304 of the law, which forbade political contributions by labor organizations in Federal elections. The provision also applied to corporations. Penalties for violations included fines up to $5,000 against offending organizations and $1,000 fines and up to a year in jail for the officers.

Many observers therefore believed that AFL and CIO were entering murky legal ground in their planned efforts to defeat Taft-Hartley supporters in Congress.

With great difficulty, a negotiated agreement had been reached with the Soviets in 1946 regarding the city, making it free with an independent governor to be approved by both the Western powers and the Soviets. But since that time, it had proved impossible to appoint a governor acceptable to both sides. The part of the territory beyond the hills was already controlled effectively by Yugoslavia, with all opposition to Tito crushed by means of terror. Efforts were being made to infiltrate the city. The anti-Tito editor, Ursic, had been brutally kidnaped.

The American-British forces had thus been instructed to tighten security to preserve order and freedom. The 10,000 troops present in Trieste, could do the job provided funding continued. Occupation of Trieste would likely have to continue, he ventures, for years to come to assure its integrity.

Framed Edition

Links-Date -- Links-Subj.