The Charlotte News
Tuesday, November 11, 1947
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Secretary of State Marshall testified further to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Germany's economy was vital to the recovery of Europe as a whole. He also stressed that recovery of Germany would need occur in such a way that it would not be able to rearm itself. Committee chairman Arthur Vandenberg asked the Secretary whether providing aid to the 16 Western nations would not create a wall between the East and West. Secretary Marshall responded that the Plan provided for trade between East and West after 1951. Parenthetically, the original offer of the aid was made to all war-torn nations, including Russia, but the Eastern-bloc countries declined to participate, on instructions from Moscow.
President Truman laid the traditional wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery, across the Potomac from Washington.
Howard Hughes, testifying before the Senate War Investigating subcommittee, chaired by Senator Homer Ferguson of Michigan, denied that he ever offered retired Maj. General Bennett Meyers $100,000 to lift a ban imposed by New York City on exhibiting of his motion picture, "The Outlaw", for its ample demonstration of assets in full figure. He did admit that General Meyers had told him that he had talked to Mayor O'Dwyer about the film's six figures. Mr. Hughes had testified the previous day that he believed at one point or two that General Meyers had obtained the ban out of vengeance for refusal of his requested $200,000 loan from Mr. Hughes. But Mr. Hughes later changed his mind on that point.
Speaker Joe Martin took under consideration whether to dismiss charges of contempt of Congress against the ten Hollywood writers, producers, and directors who had been so cited by HUAC two weeks earlier for refusing to answer whether they had ever been members of the Communist Party. It would be up to the Speaker whether to forward the charges to the U.S. Attorney for criminal prosecution.
In Bucharest, Rumania, the Peasant Party leader, Juliu Maniu, was convicted of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment at hard labor.
In Paris, a right wing newspaper, L'Intransigeant, claimed that Russia had exploded a small atomic bomb in Siberia the previous June 15, near Irkutsk. It said that the German scientists were providing considerable aid in the development. The nuclear research program was known as "Service 126". Seismological data was recorded at Stuttgart, Germany, showing that two distinct events had occurred on June 15, but similar shocks were recorded almost every day. Senator Brien McMahon of Connecticut had stated the previous January his belief, as former head of the House-Senate Atomic Energy Committee, that the Soviets were building a bomb.
In Winston-Salem, the North Carolina Baptist Convention began its annual meeting. It reported that $300,000 had been contributed to Baptist schools in the state during the year. The Convention was expected to consider the plan to build the new Wake Forest College campus based on the previously approved acceptance of the endowment of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, conditioned on the College being moved to Winston Salem—and, little known, that it change its name to "Reynolda Manor-upon-Coliseum", and rename its sports teams the Flue-Cured Demons. The school was to have a minimum enrollment of 2,000 students.
Plans were being made for the
beginning next day of the Christmas Festival in Charlotte. Actress
Anne Jeffreys
On the editorial page, "Resolution for Armistice Day" tells of this memorialized day in 1947 reminding that peace required a sacrifice which was not filled by mere oratory and vows. The U.S. had to accept itself as a world power and undertake the responsibility for advancing peace.
Isolationism was no longer in vogue. While neither the UN nor the Marshall Plan offered assurance of peace, they had checked Russian expansion.
It was unlikely that universal military training would be adopted by Congress and so the call had gone out by the military for volunteers to continue a strong defense of the country.
The primary message of the day was not a sentimental recounting of the past wars but rather a grim warning that peace had to be maintained if the country was to survive, and that both economic and military means were necessary to rebuild Europe, thus to maintain the peace.
"'Dynamic' Program for Capitalism" tells of GOP presidential candidate Harold Stassen having warned against giving aid to European governments which were heading down the socialist path. At the same time, he laid out a plan for America which was a mixture of socialism, New Dealism, and old-style capitalism.
He had a tax cutting plan which he described as "dynamic capital", calling for a ceiling of 50 percent on individual income taxes, compared to the 85.5 percent presently extant, as well as special tax cuts for small businesses, exemptions on earned income, and, as needed, general sales or excise taxes, plus a tax on earnings above a certain amount.
But he also wanted to enact credit controls and use taxing powers to prevent depression or inflation, as well as have an anti-trust drive, bound to be unpopular with Old Guard Republicans. He also favored a billion dollar per year Federal housing program, rent control, Federal-State health insurance and repeal of three key provisions of Taft-Hartley.
"'Operations Rathole' in China" tells of Senator Owen Brewster of Maine and Speaker of the House Joe Martin wanting to bring up aid to China during the special session of Congress and give it priority equal to that of the European aid. The State Department wanted the focus retained on Europe, but also stressed the crisis facing Nationalist China.
The piece thinks the European situation was the more emergent and thus deserving immediate attention before China. Nor was it possible in any event to provide aid to China with assurance that it would be used for food and rehabilitation, as the Government of Chiang Kai-Shek was notoriously corrupt, reactionary and inefficient. Several billion dollars had already been spent in China with no discernible result beyond a deepening crisis.
The Republicans who were fond of calling Europe a "rathole", down which America would be sending its money, were curiously quiet when it came to China, which was inevitably the "rathole" until the Chiang Government demonstrated a willingness to change and reform itself.
A program of 1.3 billion dollars in aid, outlined by former Ambassador William C. Bullitt in Life, was being promoted by powerful interests in the country. But Lawrence K. Rosinger, writer for the Foreign Policy Association, asserted that there was no reason to believe that the aid would enable Chiang to get rid of the Communist threat from the North. The Bullitt plan would inevitably involve the U.S. more deeply in China and its civil war, likely necessitating the spending of many more billions of dollars.
Ambassador Bullitt would also draft an article for Life, published at the end of December, regarding "The Saddest War", that in French Indo-China, between the French, many of whose soldiers had been the Maquisards fighting in the underground against the Nazis during the late war, and the Annamites of Viet Nam, the Maquisards of Indo-China, fighting under the rebel Communist leader Ho Chi Minh, who had developed his tactical manual from a study of the American Revolution.
A piece from the Richmond Times-Dispatch, titled "Note on Virginianism", tells of certain colloquial expressions of Virginians, such as referring to Thomas Jefferson as "Mr. Jefferson", to Virginia Beach as "the Beach", the "grounds and lawn" of the University of Virginia, Warm Springs Valley as "the Hot", and so on. There were also peculiar pronunciations, as "Camel" for Campbell, "Elegandria" for Alexandria, "Newper News" for Newport News, etc. Then there were the perplexing names attached to places along the Eastern Shore which challenged even native Virginians on orthographical accuracy: Pungoteague, Wachapreague, Chincoteague, Machipongo, and Nassawaddox.
Drew Pearson finds Governor Earl Warren of California, aboard the Friendship Train with him heading from Los Angeles to New York collecting food for Europe, to be the most suitable Republican candidate for the presidency should Senator Taft and Governor Dewey prove unsuitable, and the movement to nominate General Eisenhower, or alternatively General MacArthur, ultimately a razzle-dazzle fizzle. Governor Warren appealed to both parties, as he had won both primaries the previous year and Democrats had heavily supported him also in 1942.
Governor Warren was liberal, likely because of his background. His father had lost his job during a railroad strike and the family had to move from Los Angeles to Bakersfield. He still carried a Musicians Union card with him from his days in the Bakersfield Band playing the clarinet. Nevertheless, the unions considered him an enemy, under the control of the big business interests. Mr. Pearson, however, finds him a true moderate, willing to build coalitions across party lines. His appointments had generally been good. On foreign relations he had made no commitments. He had been opposed to return of the Japanese-Americans to California after their time in internment camps during the war, but once they had arrived, he asked Californians to protect them.
He had been in public service his entire adult life since law school, starting 30 years earlier as an Oakland Deputy City Attorney, eventually elected District Attorney of Alameda County. In that position, he had gone after the Klan, gamblers, racketeers and even the Mayor and most of the City Council of Oakland, resulting in their ouster. After 17 years as District Attorney, he became California Attorney General in 1939.
He had made it clear that he was not a candidate for the vice-presidency—though he would eventually run with Governor Dewey as the Republican nominee the following summer. Most of his friends said that he wanted to be U.S. Attorney General. Of course, in 1953, at the death of Chief Justice Fred Vinson, President Eisenhower would nominate him as the replacement Chief Justice, a position he would occupy for the next 16 years, tendering his resignation during 1968, as a slap in the face to Richard Nixon, whom he reportedly despised and whose prospects for becoming President were appearing quite good by the late summer, the Warren replacement being delayed until 1969 because of the forced withdrawal of President Johnson's nomination of Justice Abe Fortas to be Chief. His ultimate replacement, appointed by President Nixon, would be Warren Earl Burger.
The Library of Congress had been
forced by economizing measures of the 80th Congress to close three
nights per week. It was the first time since October 1, 1898
He advises that the economizers in the Congress look to the Senators' private Capitol elevator which was operated by a $3,300 per year employee and made only three or four trips per day when Congress was not in session, while a public elevator across the way got a regular workout.
Joseph Alsop, in Prague, asks what the lot of the Czechs would be should the Communists take the country into the Soviet sphere as a satellite, finds that the first thing with which the Soviets would have to cope is the fact that Czechoslovakia was more advanced than Russia in terms of industrial development and the means of production therefore would become restive in time under control of the Soviets. The Germans had looted the country but had also built much new industry, increasing Czech output by 20 percent during the war. Most of the physical plant and large stocks of raw materials survived the war with little damage. Those facts plus the aid from UNRRA and the ingenuity of the people had produced a rapid postwar revival.
But the country was also suffering from a dollar shortage, restricting imports, and the postwar operation had taken its toll on the machinery, without parts replacement. The Czech Crown, the basic unit of currency, had declined in value by half since the determination, dictated from Moscow, that the Government would not participate in the Marshall Plan.
The Communists promised that trade from the East would revive the economy. But the most important raw materials for Czech industry came from the West. The trade with the Soviet sphere was no more than 25 percent of its total trade.
The Russians were planning to provide 200,000 tons of grain to replace the bad harvest and wanted payment in the form of 200,000 tons of crude cast iron pipe. But to meet that demand, the Czechs would have practically to dismantle their iron and steel industry as the furnaces were designed to handle high quality ore for the type of finished goods the Czechs normally preferred. Some low-grade ore was ordered by the Russians, mixed with higher grade, and slipped past the inspectors, ruined the furnaces.
The Soviets promised cotton in four grades, but provided only one. The Czechs had hoped to provide basic gray garments to the Russians and reserve their higher grade cloth for trade with the West. But the Russians demanded high quality so that they could sell it themselves for badly needed dollars.
Samuel Grafton finds the speech in London the previous week by V. M. Molotov to have been a standard speech in which he praised everything Russian and denounced everything Western. It had not been a peace speech. There was no peace plan in place in any of the powers. The people did not want bold speeches, but plans for peace. The world was waiting for a statesman to deliver a true peace speech.
Denouncing "warmongers", as Mr. Molotov had done in reference to the U.S. and Britain, was not to speak in terms of peace. He proposed gathering all of the "anti-imperialistic and democratic forces" into one camp. That did not suggest peace.
He began his speech by suggesting the possibility of collaboration with the West but ended it with praise of Stalin for showing the way to "overthrow capitalist slavery”.
Mr. Grafton suggests that America, with its wide diversity, was not a camp. It would be helpful therefore for Russia to realize that peace was a mutual problem, and such realization might light a beacon to direct the reactive process in America.
Sumner Welles, former Undersecretary of State until August, 1943, advocates an American form of propaganda, as effective as that being utilized by the Soviets, who were improving on the Big Lie formula adopted by Hitler. Andrei Vishinsky's attacks on the U.S. had been effective, charging warmongering and imperialism as a goal of the Marshall Plan. Even Americans were reflecting on these charges.
But the greatest impact had been in Western Europe, especially in France, already bitter at the U.S. There were 1,500 "Franco-Soviet Friendship Centers" operating in France, pressing the notion that the Marshall Plan was aimed at domination of the country.
The object of such tools as the Voice of America ought be to provide Western Europe with the unadorned truth on American policy and the beliefs and desires of the American people, to counterbalance the Russian lies. The newly established Cominform had as a goal to wreck the Marshall Plan.
He urges that Congress recognize this problem and give back the funding it had taken away from the information agencies during the previous session. Otherwise, the Big Lie would prevail in the world.
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