Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Republicans in
Congress were reacting angrily to the President's message the day
before urging a return to limited and targeted wage and price
controls, plus rationing, and asserted the certain defeat of the
proposals. Both Senator Taft and House Speaker Joe Martin decried
the President's economic plan, Senator Taft replying in a radio
message calling the proposals an end to economic freedom and the the
advent of a police state, which the President, himself, had
condemned on October 16 in a press conference. House Majority Leader
Charles Halleck joined the condemnatory chorus, suggesting that the
President had asked Congress to set him up as a dictator with
special powers to regulate prices and wages. Democratic Senators
Elmer Thomas of Oklahoma and Harry Byrd of Virginia also criticized
the proposals.
At the same time, Senator Taft reiterated that there was no
serious objection to the President's proposal for 597 million
dollars worth of emergency aid for Italy, France, and Austria for
the winter.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Senator Styles
Bridges, however, wanted a thorough study by the Committee of the
nation's food resources, as well supplies of coal and other
commodities, before any commitment would be made to the plan for
emergency aid, complaining that the President was asking for action
too quickly without providing detailed estimates. He said that the
nation would not be stampeded into action.
Congressman Everett Dirksen of Illinois, returning from a
month-long inspection trip of Germany as part of a Congressional
delegation, called for a ban on exports which strengthened the
economic and military power of Communist countries, saying that
Russia was preparing for a military hot war. He accused Russia of
trying to communize all of Eastern Europe and Germany and exhorted
that Germany stood as the key to avoiding such communization of
Europe. He favored revitalization of German industry as the remedy,
while assuring France and Poland that Germany would not be in
position to rearm itself. He also recommended a more vigorous
American information program to combat Russian propaganda.
Under terms of the Geneva trade and tariff agreement, which
had become public the previous night, the U.S. would make more than
3,500 cuts in import duties as part of a 22-nation pact, to become
effective January 1. A State Department official said that the
general effect would be to ease the burden on the consumer by
lowering prices. The National Association of Alcoholic Beverage
importers stated that the reduction would lower the price of Scotch
by 30 cents per fifth. The wool industry had advocated an increase
in tariffs, but under the agreement the duty imposed on foreign wool
would be lowered from 34 cents to 25.5 cents. Cuts of 50 percent, the legal limit under the Reciprocal Trade Agreement of 1934,
would occur on softwood lumber, gasoline, Portland cement, wheat and
wheat flour, lime, beef, bauxite, burlap, photographic film,
higher-priced furs, and other items. The changes could be made
legally by executive order without Congressional approval.
Canada initiated a program of economic austerity, restricting
imports, to stem its dwindling supply of dollars. It was primarily
aimed at balancing the trade imbalance with the U.S., which had been
a billion dollars worth of annual exports to twice that in imports.
U.S. administrator of the Truman Doctrine in Greece, former
Nebraska Governor Dwight Griswold, informed that, henceforth, U.S.
Army officers would have an advisory role in military matters with
the Greek Army, but would have no command capacity. The Greek
Government had sought this role for several months and Mr. Griswold
had been recommending it for ten weeks.
In France, all of the nation's coal miners and longshoremen
were on strike, along with three of the automobile plants, led by
the nationalized Renault factory, nearly paralyzing the nation.
Civil servants were also threatening to strike, beginning Friday.
All of the workers were demanding a 25 percent advance pending wage
increases.
Former French Premier Paul Reynaud was seeking to form a
moderate alternative government to that of the Socialist-led Cabinet
of Paul Ramadier. Socialist Leon Blum was also vying to form a new
government, possibly to be in coalition with that of M. Reynaud.
The Senate War Investigating subcommittee continued to hear
from B. H. Lamarre regarding the accounting of Aviation Electric
Corp. and the central role of retired Maj. General Bennett Meyers in the
company while he acted as deputy chief procurement officer for the
Army Air Forces during the war. Mr. Lamarre said that the company
paid the General nearly $18,000 in salary in 1941 and also paid
$10,000 to redecorate his apartment. The General admitted to the
press after the testimony that the company had paid the money to
remodel his apartment, which he regarded as a gift, in gratitude for
his having loaned the Lamarres the money to found the company, of
which Mr. Lamarre had been made president by the General, advanced
from a $35 per week job. The head of Bell Aviation had already
testified the previous day that he had recommended, based on the
advice of General Meyers, that the company receive a million dollars
worth of subcontracts during the war.
In Havana, Ark., in Yell County, an Army B-25 crashed,
killing all six aboard. The plane was reported to have circled
around Mt. Magazine as if lost, before crashing into the side of the
mountain. The crash occurred just twenty yards from where another
Army plane had crashed two years earlier.
In Bishopville, S.C., a man shot to death his estranged wife,
a housekeeper, when she changed her mind about reconciling and also
shot and gravely wounded her employer, then turned the gun on
himself, inflicting a final fatal wound.
Burke Davis of The News begins a special series on
former North Carolina Governor and interim Senator Cameron Morrison
of Charlotte. He finds Mr. Morrison, 78 years old, to be an exponent
of modern North Carolina history, having made much of it, himself.
He was a great admirer of Thomas Jefferson and also remembered
fondly a visit to the state by Marshal Foch when Mr. Morrison was
Governor. He still had an autographed photograph of the French
military leader of World War I on his wall, alongside a large
portrait of Mr. Jefferson.
Furman Bisher, on the sports page, finds N.C. State, victors
over Wake Forest the previous Saturday, 20-0, rebounding from their
loss the previous weekend to North Carolina, 41-6, to be the team of
the week. State would win the following weekend at Virginia, 7-2,
and then tie Maryland in naughts to end the season, 5-3-1.
Our prediction for this past week, incidentally, proved just
two points off, at 42-35, actually predicted two weeks ago. The
final score was 40-35, based on a pair of freakishly missed extra
points. So, two of the last three games, we have been only two
points off each time.
This Thursday, the score will be 38-36, as our team meets the
other team for the first time on a Thursday since Thanksgiving Day,
November 28, 1963, won by our team, 16-14, on a 42-yard field goal
in the waning seconds, which we witnessed. The circumstances this
time surrounding the event will be markedly better than on that sad
Thanksgiving, a postponed football game affording only temporary escape from
an otherwise bleak November reality, brought to the fore of
consciousness again as the late afternoon shadows lengthened into
gradual darkness during the ride back home from Durham.
On the editorial page, "Truman Faces the Facts Squarely"
finds the President eating his own recent words, that wage and price
controls and rationing in peacetime were incidents of a police
state, when he announced in his message to Congress the previous day
that he was urging those very incidents as a means to limit runaway
inflation, part of the interlocking agenda of the special session to
assure cheaper aid to the European nations and to defray the costs
of the program to the country. He proclaimed such controls as
democratic methods for fighting inflation, a threat to
democracy—pulling a leaf from FDR's wartime manual.
But the program would only apply to commodities and raw
materials which were scarce and so was not to be a complete revival
of OPA. It was necessary, he urged, to rebuild Europe and preserve
world peace. The President, in urging this option against his own
conservative inclinations, offered a chance to Congress to rectify
its termination too early of controls on the economy, as
demonstrated by the inflationary results of a year without them,
regardless of the high production levels which were, according to
the economic experts, supposed to have curbed inflation by meeting
demand after a short period of inflated prices.
The editorial opines that the people and Congress would
reject the proposal only at their peril.
"'Let's Talk More About Democracy'" comments on
criticism of former Georgia Governor Ellis Arnall for his decrying
of the anti-Communist hysteria at work in the nation, instead
favoring working at democracy as a means to defeat Communism. Many
had said that his diminishing the Communist threat at home based on
their small numbers ignored that they were also only a small
minority in Russia and the countries of Eastern Europe under
Communist control.
But it was unreasonable to compare Russia and its satellites
with the U.S. in terms of the effect of Communist propaganda. The
U.S. had a democratic tradition for over 160 years. Governor Arnall
was trying to make that point and was not being Polyannaish in doing
so, advocating the fortification of democracy as the best bulwark to
Communist efficacy. The piece commends Governor Arnall's advice to
those who would limit civil liberties to fight Communism.
"Herschel Johnson, Peacemaker" tells of former
Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles, in a piece published on the
page, having credited Charlotte native Herschel Johnson, deputy
delegate to the U.N., with much of the responsibility for the
agreement between Russia and the U.S. regarding the partition of
Palestine, one of the new U.N. triumphs which appeared set to occur.
It provides a brief biography of Mr. Johnson and expresses
the pride of the city and the region in his success on this
important issue.
It would, of course, be easy to suggest in hindsight that the
success was not what it appeared to foreshadow at the time, though
it was well understood that achieving peace in troubled Palestine
would not be easy, seeking to accommodate two peoples whose
religious differences kept many of them at crossed swords and with
one group believing the other to be forced interlopers to their
country, ignoring their own status formed after World War I, under
mandate to Britain.
But such cynicism would be simple and the world and human
relations tend to be complex. The people of 1947 were trying their
best to work out a complicated situation to afford a proper homeland
to two million displaced persons in Europe, who had been promised by
the Balfour Declaration such a homeland 30 years earlier. Had more
been done toward its realization in the Twenties and early Thirties,
perhaps most of the six million Jews who were murdered by the Nazis
would have lived much longer.
What was done may not appear perfect in hindsight, but then
neither was the creation of the United States out of hostile
territory occupied by Native Americans, challenged by the British,
Spanish, and French settlements.
The point is that no one really owns the land, not even the
aboriginal populations who carve it from the wilderness and the
embracing grip of nature. Start there and with the concept that
all of humanity, at some juncture, individually and collectively, have been
wronged by nature, by disease, by ill fortune, by other parts of
humanity, and the rest becomes understandable. We do not live in a
perfect world. Only idiots believe it to be achievable. And, as
Hitler, they usually wind up badly.
Quote from the Atlanta Journal, another of its
"pomes": Some arguments close
With a punch on the nose.We might add:
Only the dumb, fetid dead,
Consigned to the endless echoes of hell,
Seek end to an argument
By taking off the other guy's head, pell-mell.Sumner Welles, as indicated, gives great credit to Herschel
Johnson for his role in effecting the Palestine partition plan which
received approbation from Russia, assuring its passage. Lester
Pearson of Canada also, he says, deserved special recognition for
his persistence in pressing for acceptance of the U.S. plan.
By contrast, because of Ernest Bevin's bias and recalcitrance
in refusing to cooperate in implementation of the plan, its success
was jeopardized. The damage was not irreparable but the Assembly had
to act with celerity to work out an alternative to British interim
administration, if the plan was to be passed at the current meeting.
By adopting a proposal that the two new states become
independent prior to July 1, the Assembly had demonstrated wisdom,
as well in adopting the Guatemalan proposal that the the smaller
powers make up a small committee to carry out the Assembly's
decision. The Soviets were justified in demanding that the committee
thus to be formed be ultimately answerable to the Security Council,
as it had the sole power of enforcement under the U.N. Charter.
The problem arose in not having a police force in place
between the time of the end of the British Mandate and the beginning
of sovereign government of the two new states. He wonders whether
the militias to be formed by each state could so maintain order
during that crucial interim period and whether the executive
committee could do so by moral suasion. He thinks that the Security
Council ought form an international police force comprised of
personnel from the smaller powers for the purpose.
He offers that only through the U.N. could such a resolution
have come about, that the major powers acting alone could not have
achieved it. Nor could it have occurred without the leadership of
Dr. Chaim Weizmann and his associates of the Jewish Agency, and such
Americans as Rabbi Stephen Wise and Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver. "It
is because of their devotion and because of the sacrifices of their
followers that one of the noblest ideals of modern times is about to
be realized."
Drew Pearson, still aboard the Friendship Train headed from
Los Angeles to New York collecting food for Europe, tells of it
having pulled into New York the previous day as Congress began its
special session, just 37 days since he had enunciated the idea in
his column of October 11. It had 150 boxcars in train, containing
food which should reach France and Italy, in most critical need, by
Christmas or New Year's Day, while Congress would likely still be
debating emergency aid. Most of the residents of New York City would
not see the train arrive as it would come in underground as a
passenger train.
He relates of various additional examples of generosity of
the American people and private business in contributing to the
success of the journey. The Musicians Local 47 had contributed eight
40-piece bands for the parade through Los Angeles to start the train
on its journey. Hershey Chocolate had brought a boxcar of sugar by
boat from Cuba the same day the train departed L.A., timed to meet
the train in New York. Sidney, Neb., contributed two carloads of
wheat from its 4,000 residents while Omaha, with a population of
250,000, contributed only one carload. Other small towns, as
Sterling, Ill., near Chicago, equaled the feat.
Two of a group of 20 Iowa farmers who had paid their own way
to Europe the previous summer responded to Congressman John Taber of
New York, when he had returned from the Continent claiming to have
seen no human suffering, that there was none apparent that they had
seen either around the big hotels. They related that food could be
as potent an instrument of foreign policy as guns and tanks and more
constructive than atomic weaponry. It was also more valuable than
diplomacy, provided the recipients understood from whence it came.
The Friendship Train was making sure of identification of the
source.
He notes that the people of Kansas, Texas, and Oklahoma were
forming a special wheat section of the train, set to leave Wichita
on November 20 and arrive in Philadelphia November 26.
Joseph Alsop, in Berlin, suggests that it was necessary to
explore "the dark places of the soul" to reach an
understanding why the Soviet Union would not agree to a German peace
settlement acceptable to the West and why the West could not agree
to a settlement under terms demanded by the Soviets. The problem, he
says, lay in the fact that the Soviets had a system of concentration
camps in the Eastern zone of Germany, more extensive than that of
the Nazis during the war. They included some of the Nazi camps,
Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, and Fuenfeichen. Others were located at
Jamlitz, Frankfurt on Oder—not to be confused with Western
Frankfurt on Main—, Turgau, Muhlenberg Elbe, Altenburg Elbe,
Buntzen, Altenhain, Oranienburg, Berlin Hohenschoenhausen, Schwerin,
Letchendorf, Doebein, Unterwellenborn, and Freiburg. The smaller
camps contained between 8,000 and 10,000 prisoners while the larger
held 15,000 to 25,000, the total running to 200,000. Ketchendorf,
with 8,000 prisoners, averaged 15 deaths per day or about 5,500 per
year. Similar numbers of deaths occurred in the other camps. It was
estimated that the yearly total was about 150,000 deaths in an area
of eighteen million people.
He states that the prisoners were not the former Nazis
rounded up at the end of the war, many of whom had been deemed
de-Nazified by having joined the Communist-front Socialist Unity
Party. The majority
of the prisoners were Socialists and others suspected by the secret
police for reasons not connected with the war. The rest were probably either dead or had been transferred to
work camps in Russia, equivalent to a death sentence.
As example, seven students from Berlin University, prominent
members of the Christian Democratic Party, were taken by the M.V.D.
as they strolled down Unter den Linden. They had not been seen
since. The Landerat of a Thuringian kreis, a loyal Socialist, had
resisted the tactics of the SUP and he was arrested for "sabotage
and corruption", had not been seen since. In Brandenburg, two
members of the workers council in a factory at Henningsdorf sent a
letter to the local newspaper complaining about the food situation.
A little while later, they disappeared and had not been seen since.
There were other such examples which provided insight to the
"night of the soul."
Samuel Grafton suggests that one problem which would likely
develop from the prospective four or five months of debate on the
Marshall Plan was the conception that the Soviets were the only
problem facing the country abroad. It was not the case. He ventures
that water pollution in the country could not be gotten rid of
unless it were linked to the Red Menace in the popular
consciousness. The world which would result under a Marshall Plan
thus constrained in perspective would be limited. A folk belief
might come about that but for Russia, the world would be a paradise.
Some had begun to believe that getting rid of Reds at home
would end domestic problems and getting rid of Reds abroad would
provide a panacea for foreign problems. Nations who became so
absorbed in such an ideé
fixe usually did things which, to the outside world, seemed
bizarre.
Mr. Grafton states parenthetically that he had always
resisted courses in concentration for concern that becoming so fixed on one birdie would cause him to miss things outside his field of
focus.
He does not deny that Russia was a problem but cautions that
viewing it as the only problem was to delimit the issues to the
point of missing other real problems, escaping into the field of
unreality, as "reading historical novels about women in thin
drapes."
One did not need to undertake any study to become an
anti-Russian expert, but only utter the simple statement, "I
hate Russia."
The country owed a responsibility to use its relative wealth
and resources to harness a spirit of progress aimed at peace rather
than using it merely to stop something, Soviet expansion. It was to
pay Russia an inverse compliment to vest in it so much deft skill to
have single-handedly created all of the world's post-war problems,
to be "the transfixing eye, which governs our pulse and our
actions."
