Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President was
planning to lay the long-range Marshall Plan before the Congress in
his message to start the special session on Monday, and that the
Administration would lay the whole plan before the Congress during
the special session, albeit without the hope of getting Congress to
act on it before the regular session would begin in January.
Previously, it had been thought that only the plan for emergency
interim aid during the winter was to be presented during the special
session. But members had urged presentation of the entire Plan so
that they could act intelligently on granting emergency aid,
proposed as 597 million dollars, primarily to be given to Italy and
France.
At the U.N., the possibility arose that the date of partition
of Palestine into two states, one Arab and one Jewish, might be
delayed until October 1, 1948 based on the British having declined
to be party to the partition plan, to which agreement had been
reached by the U.S. and Russia, refusing to administer Palestine
during the interim period between the end of the British Mandate and
the beginning of government by the two states. The proposed plan
would end the Mandate on May 1 and the states would become
independent on July 1. Russia was reported to be opposed to changing
those dates to August 1 and October 1, respectively.
In Palestine, the death toll from three days of violence had
reached 16, with another 36 wounded. A 20-year old Jew had been
killed the previous night in Haifa when an unidentified group began
shooting at a bus. Emanuel Ben-Gurion, nephew of David Ben-Gurion,
head of the Jewish Agency, had been reported among the wounded in
the incident. Six Jews were among the dead, and three among the
wounded. Five of the dead Jews had been killed on November 12 by
police and military personnel in a raid on a house thought to be a
Stern Gang terror training center, the incident which had triggered
the responsive violence attributed to the Stern Gang the previous
day, in which four Britons, two soldiers and two policemen, were
killed in two separate incidents taking place in Jerusalem and Tel
Aviv.
In Cleveland, Assistant Secretary of the Interior, C. Girard
Davidson, stated that the HUAC investigation of Hollywood during the
latter half of October stood as example of some groups in the
country seeking to withdraw Constitutional rights from those who did
not follow "the middle road of conformity" or a
"mid-Victorian social and economic philosophy" or who
professed that the society had not reached perfection under Herbert
Hoover. He stated that those who claimed to fear Communism were
actually feeding the Communists what they wanted, eradication of all
vestiges of liberalism and progress.
In Tabor, Czechoslovakia, during a ceremony in which a
memorial to President Roosevelt was unveiled, the U.S. Ambassador to
Czechoslovakia, Lawrence Steinhardt, made a speech comparing the
late President to John Huss, the Czech hero who fought for freedom
and was a native of Tabor, burned at the stake in 1415 for refusing
to recant religious doctrines he had been preaching.
Charles Markham of The News interviewed former Georgia
Governor Ellis Arnall, in Durham to speak at Duke. The progressive
former Governor had been receiving numerous speaking invitations
throughout the country since he had emerged as the hero of the
gubernatorial succession controversy the previous January when the
Georgia Legislature gave the Governor's Mansion to Herman Talmadge,
son of the late Governor-elect Eugene Talmadge who had died in
December before being sworn into office. The Supreme Court of
Georgia ultimately had decided the matter in favor of the Lieutenant
Governor, M. E. Thompson, whom Mr. Arnall believed was the rightful
successor under the State Constitution and, on that basis, had contested
the right of Mr. Talmadge to enter the Mansion and to set up an office
in the State Capitol and begin acting as Governor, attracting national attention.
His message was simply that the only limitation on the future
of the country was that which the people themselves would create and
that the problems of any given state or section were problems to be
faced by the entire nation, that the problems of the country or the
world could be solved in each community. He decried the cynical
notion that the U.S. ought drop the atom bomb and "get it over with".
The Senate War Investigating subcommittee looking into the
war contracts of Howard Hughes suddenly ended its hearings into the
matter, amid allegations by Mr. Hughes that the subcommittee had
withheld information from the public anent how Mr. Hughes had
received the war contracts. Subcommittee chairman Homer Ferguson of
Michigan denied the allegations. The subcommittee, he said, would,
however, continue its hearings on retired Maj. General Bennett
Meyers and his dealings with Hughes Aircraft and several other
airlines, some of whose stock he had purchased while negotiating
contracts as procurement officer for the Army Air Forces. Senator
Ferguson, perhaps not choosing the best wording, stated that the
subcommittee had not "even lit the fire" yet under General
Meyers.
Retired deputy commander of the Air Forces, Ira Eaker,
testified to the subcommittee that it was untrue that General Meyers
had purchased airline stock for him, as the General had claimed.
In Goldsboro, N.C., one child had died and two others of the
same family were critically ill from lead poisoning after breathing
fumes of burning lead batteries used for fuel. A doctor said that
deadly fumes from old batteries could carry two or three blocks.
In New York, two doctors were charged with homicide for the
death of a 22-year old woman who had died following a criminal
abortion. An autopsy determined that the cause of death was the
abortion.
In La Crescenta, California, about 20 men wearing American
Legion caps reportedly marched into a home where a Democratic Club
was holding a meeting and ordered the members to disband and leave
the premises, urging the members to "thank God" that they
lived in the United States. The Legionnaires thought that the club
was comprised of Progressive Party members. The Sheriff's sergeant
arrived on the scene and saw the men in their caps on the lawn. No
arrests were made.
But their caps, bearing "Glendale 127", were taken
away and thrown in the ocean. If you find their caps while fishing,
do not return them.
Actress Greer Garson was recovering at the home of a friend at Beverly Farms
in Beverly, Mass., following surgery.
The Outlaw of Guntown, Miss., a former soldier, got his gun through the mail
from the Army.
On the editorial page, "Record Profits and Production"
tells of the President having dodged the question at a press
conference as to whether he would seek re-implementation of the
excess profits tax which had been in effect during the war, saying
that he would so indicate in his message to Congress in January.
A strong case had been made against doing so despite the
highest profits being made by big business in the history of the
country. For the key to success of the Marshall Plan was increased
production, and it was believed that such a tax would deter
production beyond a certain level.
The piece urges that the fact that profits had been the
engine of increasing production post-war ought discourage putting
any brakes on corporate profits through re-imposition of an excess
profits tax.
"Philadelphia, Here He Comes" predicts that the
candidacy of Governor Earl Warren for the GOP nomination for the
presidency, as the Governor had announced the previous day, would
emerge in the event of a deadlocked convention between Governor
Dewey and Senator Taft. Those who believed that General Eisenhower
would be the choice out of such a deadlock overlooked the fact that
the Republicans wanted a seasoned campaigner and proven vote-getter,
as Governor Warren.
He had determined not to campaign or seek delegates outside
California, thus not getting in the way of the two leading
candidates, leaving him as a non-antagonistic alternative in the event
of a deadlock. His popularity in the West was unmistakable and there
had been no prior presidential candidate from the Far West save
Herbert Hoover, who had been born and raised in Iowa and spent much
time abroad before joining the Harding Administration in the early
Twenties.
"Lex Marsh Is a Good Neighbor" compliments Mr.
Marsh for having decided to withdraw his plans to build an apartment
house in the Myers Park neighborhood of the city, which he had the
right to do under the extant zoning ordinance when he bought the
property, after which he had been issued a permit by the City to do
so. But the zoning ordinance had since been enacted and the
residents were upset at the news that he intended to build. He
decided instead to be a good neighbor, forgo his legal rights, and
deserved commendation for it.
A piece from the Washington Post, titled "Reuther's
Rightists", applauds the re-election of Walter Reuther as
president of UAW and the election of his supporters to other key
posts in the union, eliminating Communist influence in UAW. Mr.
Reuther still opposed Taft-Hartley but wanted to do so through legal
channels, not by non-compliance with the provisions as other unions,
led by John L. Lewis and the UMW, had done.
Mr. Reuther had overcome the Communist-inspired slur that he
was in bed politically with Senator Robert Taft, an effort to taint
him with the rank-and-file.
CIO head Philip Murray had praised Mr. Reuther at the start
of the convention while giving only tepid recognition to the other
former officers, suspected of Communist sympathies, who were
eventually defeated.
Drew Pearson, aboard the Friendship Train, tells the inside
story of the maneuvering which went into the Congressional Tax Study
Committee having recommended a large tax cut. The Committee,
comprised primarily of Wall Street business men selected by House Ways & Means chairman Harold
Knutson, naturally favored
the interests of big business. The minority report was prepared by
the labor member, Matthew Woll of AFL. The minority report, contrary
to usual practice, was not printed with the majority report,
prompting inquiries. The reason was that the report was filed late
because of efforts by the majority to get Mr. Woll to refrain from
filing such a vigorous objection. The initial press release by the
majority claimed that the report recommended tax cuts for the lower
income brackets when in fact, upon actual reading of it, the press
had discovered that the primary effort was toward giving the upper
brackets loopholes.
Italian Ambassador to the U.S. Alberto Tarchiani was a
visitor aboard the Friendship Train. He had fled Italy in 1925 to
escape Mussolini's Black Shirt rule and then fought back during the
rise of Fascism, either with his typewriter or otherwise. He had
occasionally slipped back into Italy, as in 1929 when he led a
daring rescue of three political prisoners from the Lipari Islands.
He had also been responsible for the scattering of anti-Fascist
propaganda leaflets from an airplane over Milan.
He had led a movement in exile from France until Hitler
invaded in 1940, at which time he fled to Britain, where initially
he was placed in jail until he could convince the British
authorities that he was not the enemy. He then spent the next three
years in New York, encouraging development of democracy in Italy. He
accompanied the Allied troops into Salerno and during the battle of
Anzio, about which he had written a book, Twenty Terrible Days at
Anzio. He had also written a book on the current Italian
Premier, Alcide de Gasperi.
James Marlow of the Associated Press tells of the effort by
many Americans to send food and supplies to Europe on their own. He
provides the procedure by which citizens could do so. An alternative
to sending actual goods was to send $10 to CARE in New York, and the
resulting packages from CARE could be sent to individuals abroad.
Stewart Alsop discusses Walter Reuther's overwhelming victory
at the UAW convention during the week, not only capturing the
presidency again but also the top four spots in the union and
control of the executive board, built on a platform of eliminating
Communist influence within the union. It marked the last opportunity
for Communists to influence a major segment of American labor and,
in consequence, to influence deeply the left in the country. It
reduced them to political impotence. Only two or three months
earlier, until Joseph Curran's victory in the National Maritime Union, the
Communists had a chance to dominate about half of the CIO
membership.
Philip Murray's position as head of CIO was also
strengthened. The CIO PAC, which had Communist influence, would
likely undergo a change. Mr. Reuther was expected to replace R. J.
Thomas, former UAW president and immediately past vice-president, as
the treasurer of PAC.
Communist officers in the CIO United Electrical Workers union
would likely soon be voted out, as it kept the union from being able
to partake of NLRB services in collective bargaining, pursuant to
the restriction under Taft-Hartley. The UEW was the last stronghold
of the Communists in organized labor.
Thus, the UAW election signaled a major sea change within
CIO, which would have ripple effects in other CIO unions. It had
also repudiated the base of Henry Wallace within the CIO and thus
set back the prospects of a viable third party movement.
Marquis Childs discusses the boom in the Republican Party to
try to nominate General Eisenhower for the presidency. The realists
in Washington believed it would gain no traction because the GOP was
so tightly controlled by men with little sympathy for outsiders with
no political track record. The recent exception had been Wendell
Willkie in 1940, but the Old Guard had later greatly regretted that
nomination. The Republicans at the time believed that they had a
better shot at defeating FDR for a third term with an outsider than
with a party regular. They would only take General Eisenhower under
similar circumstances, the need for glamour to win, unlikely to
prevail by the following June.
The General appeared genuinely not to want the job but would
likely not say no if a tide developed to sweep him to the
nomination. He had not delivered a Shermanesque unqualified "no"
to running, but close associates believed that he might do so, to
forestall the prospect of a draft.
The likelihood, therefore, absent some major intervening
event, was that Governor Dewey would again get the nod of the GOP.
A letter writer provides some verse to honor the Christmas
Festival which had taken place in Charlotte on Wednesday, with
special recognition provided ABC Radio storyteller Ted Malone and
actress Anne Jeffreys, both of whom had come to town for the event.