The Charlotte News

Thursday, November 27, 1947

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the Big Four foreign ministers conference in London appeared to be engaged in disputes regarding the settlement of the German treaty, with the future of the country at stake, as to whether it would be united or divided between East and West. Soviet Foreign Commissar V. M. Molotov accused the Western powers again of attempting to impose an imperialist peace on Germany and blocking its recovery, that the West could convert it to a military base for launching operations in Europe. Russia, he claimed, was striving for a democratic peace in Germany. The primary areas of dispute centered on the type of political and economic division to be set up within Germany.

Secretary of State Marshall urged that Mr. Molotov did not believe the propagandist statements he was making and that the delegates should get down to work to reach mutually beneficial agreement.

The third scheduled session of the conference for this date was presumably set to begin work on the German treaty.

Senator Joseph Ball of Minnesota accused the Truman Administration of trying to rush emergency aid to Europe through the special session of Congress by using blitzkrieg tactics and the "old mousetrap play". Congress was demonstrating that it intended to follow its own schedule on the matter, the starving of Europe be damned.

Let them grow their own food before Christmas. Listen here, we Americans work for a living.

Let that namby-pamby, bleeding heart Friendship Train feed them.

Representative Charles Kersten of Wisconsin told of Germany having enough scrap steel among its ruins to end the world shortage of scrap metal, causing prices to be $40 per ton in the U.S., contributing to inflation. He suggested the untapped scrap as Germany's greatest resource for export trade.

In China, the Nationalist forces claimed victory at Yenling, a major Communist stronghold.

Senator George Aiken of Vermont had called for a complete reorganization of the GOP from top to bottom, including replacement of RNC chairman Carroll Reece. He contended that there had been no constructive ideas from party leadership in months and, in consequence, the voters were losing confidence in the party.

The party leaders did not listen to the radical Senator Aiken, but he was entirely correct in his assessment, less than a year before a disastrous election day for the GOP, losing decisively every bit of the mandate they had acquired in the 1946 mid-term elections—which is wont to happen when you're collectively stupid and drunk with power, wanting to investigate everyone back to their birth certificates and beyond.

The President's new DC-6, "The Independence", was grounded, along with all other DC-6's, following the recent pair of fires, one producing 52 fatalities in a crash over Bryce Canyon, Utah, on October 24 and another causing an emergency landing in Gallup, N.M., on November 11. The fires, subsequently determined by CAB to be the result of fuel overflowing from an internal tank into the heating ducts of the plane during routine transfer of fuel from the external tank, were already thought by the agency to be the result of that problem, based on tests conducted on the plane in Santa Monica, California.

The President's pilot had reported no problems with "The Independence" in 80,000 miles of flight. The plane was to undergo testing at Santa Monica. The President would revert to use of the "Sacred Cow" for travel—slower, but giving milk along the way, as long it did not desire a graze in the grass to maintain the flow.

In Paris, the new Cabinet of Premier Robert Schuman faced its first test in the National Assembly after being rebuffed by union leaders in an attempt to settle the nationwide strikes crippling the country, especially in its transportation facilities.

In Gravesend, England, the Labor Party won another bye-election, continuing its string of such victories, uninterrupted since the July, 1945 national election which put Labor in power. Other bye-elections were pending.

In Chicago, the three major daily newspapers took a holiday from publication because of the printers strike. A photographic process of typed copy had enabled the papers to operate for the prior two days. The other three dailies in the city were continuing to publish, utilizing the substitute photo-engraving method.

James Caesar Petrillo, head of the American Federation of Musicians, lifted his previously imposed ban on musicians appearing on cooperative network shows which were broadcast on a locally-sponsored basis, clearing the way for union musicians in each city to return to the radio airwaves despite sponsorship of the network shows by local advertisers.

The Western College Congress, meeting in Palo Alto, California, at Stanford University, voted to establish through the U.N. a world government and provide the organization with responsibility over the atom bomb.

That's a relief.

Clear weather prevailed over most of the United States on Thanksgiving, 1947, interrupted by snow and flurries in a few areas around the Great Lakes, Ohio Valley, some parts of the Appalachians, and the higher elevations of New York and New England, as well as in Iowa and Minnesota.

Common carriers were busy taking holiday travelers to turkey for repast and stuffing.

On the editorial page, "Hannegan and the 'New Truman'" tells of the departure of Robert Hannegan from his post as Postmaster General representing the end of the Roosevelt era insofar as FDR appointees in the Cabinet. Mr. Hannegan had been singularly responsible for placing Senator Truman on the ticket in 1944.

The hand of the "new Truman", more populist and less geocentric to his native stomping grounds in Missouri, was evident in the replacement, Jesse Donaldson, career civil servant in the Post Office who worked his way up from a mail carrier. It was the first such appointment by a President to the post, most recently reserved for the party chairman, but always having been a political appointment with coveted patronage attached to it, the power to appoint postmasters in each burg and ville throughout the nation. It was an important step in the President's determination to have Government career personnel play a larger role.

It was one of many changes which had taken place in the two-year evolution of the President since his early days in office, thrust into the role by tragic circumstances but three months after becoming Vice-President. That progress was, opines the piece, tribute to Mr. Hannegan who had played a significant role in it. He had also saved Senator Truman in 1940 when Mr. Hannegan's district in St. Louis kept the Senator from defeat in the heavily contested primary. Mr. Truman then returned the favor by supporting Mr. Hannegan for collector of internal revenue for St. Louis, which brought him to the favorable attention of FDR, who then appointed him commissioner of internal revenue in 1943. He became DNC chairman in early 1944 and Postmaster General in June, 1945.

Mr. Hannegan headed back to his native St. Louis, to be part owner and president of the Cardinals baseball club.

"Let's Fill the Empty Stocking" reminds of the beginning of the annual drive by The News to provide Christmas gifts to needy families with children.

It remarks that in flush times, as the present, it was a paradox that those on fixed incomes would find it hard to give, as inflation hit them harder than wage earners.

"Steps on the Road to Peace" gives thanks for changing politicians not confined to strait jackets, especially the President, who had shifted from the militaristically-oriented Truman Doctrine of March, 1947 to the peace-oriented Marshall Plan of the previous June and onward, as well from a free market "boom and bust" economic doctrine to a realization of the need for government controls on inflation.

Senator Vandenberg had long departed from his former isolationism before the war and become a champion of bipartisan internationalism. He had just impressively recommended, as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, passage of the 597 million dollar emergency aid package for France, Italy, and Austria. It was significant that he had stressed, as had Secretary of State Marshall before him, that the aid to Europe was not intended as a declaration of economic war between Western and Eastern Europe and that there was need for a "live and let live" world, before which no obstacle would be placed by the U.S. under the Marshall Plan.

A piece from the New York World-Telegram, titled "Etaoin Shrdlu", tells of the keyboard-derived figure of the American press. At 62, Etaoin was born, by coincidence, the same day as the linotype machine in 1885, prob;y in the toon too toufh to dee—which, as we have related, happens to be what we received in typing in high school, which is why we determined that being a stenographer would not a wise choice of carewq meka.

We and kindred spirits have thrived thus in the age of the personal computer, which stands for the principle that to err is human, to erase divine. Richard Nixon must have said something along those lines, probably to Rosemary Woods on Thanksgiving, 1973.

In any event, Etaoin, the piece rpots, was unmarred and chose Old Goulds in the blindfoold test.

A piece from the Congressional Record tells of the world food shortage knocking into a cocked hat some of the plans of American farm leaders while producing record high food prices. It explains how the food crisis had caused problems for the Agriculture Department and the Congressional committees charged with oversight of agriculture.

Drew Pearson, on the occasion of the nation's 326th Thanksgiving, remarks again on the outpouring of generosity by Americans across the land to supply the Friendship Train with food for Europe. Senator Arthur Vandenberg, in recommending to his colleagues the emergency aid measure during the week, mentioned the train, along with the Freedom Train, as examples to all Americans, underscoring and celebrating on the one hand the nation's humanitarianism, and on the other, the ideals embodied in its founding documents.

Traditionally, the President did not have to work on Thanksgiving, with Congress usually out of session. But with the special session called by the President to deal with emergency aid and the concomitant problem of inflation in the country, the President had his hands full.

Mr. Pearson provides a brief look at how prior Presidents had spent Thanksgiving.

Latter-day consumers can find an archetype, perhaps, with whom to identify in Mrs. William McKinley, who, bored with her husband's drafting of a message for Congress on Thanksgiving in 1900, went to New York on a shopping spree the next day. Don't buy too much now. Remember the one about gluttony.

Until President Lincoln first declared it a national holiday in 1863, Thanksgiving had been confined largely to New England. The Democrats had resisted a national holiday for half a century, as an undue exercise of Federal power. At the time, it was partly the influence of Washington merchants, wanting a boon to ailing Civil War business, which caused the Lincoln proclamation fixing it as an official holiday.

One reason President Truman attended the First Baptist Church about a half mile from the White House was that there was no great fanfare when he was present. He usually went with only one Secret Service man in tow. President Roosevelt had always complained of lack of privacy while attending church, as special ramps to accommodate his wheelchair had to be constructed and he had to move to his seat in a pew via his braces while parishioners stared. He would often take some of his less religious associates with him to church, such as Winston Churchill.

Representative Robert Bartlett of Alaska had told the President of the need for special housing in the territory to accommodate veterans who had ventured there only to find no housing, then turned around and went back home. Mr. Bartlett proposed statehood as a remedy. The President agreed that he was still in favor of statehood for Alaska.

Charles W. Duke, in his continuing series on the Freedom Train, tells of the Congressional Order of December 27, 1776, signed by John Hancock, which increased the powers of General Washington, being aboard the train. It gave the General power to raise additional troops and to take provisions as needed for the Continental Army, allowing a reasonable sum in recompense if the people refused to sell. He also had authority to arrest and imprison those who refused to accept the inflated continental currency.

A letter from General Washington to Gouverneur Morris, dated December 10, 1780, was included, bemoaning the hardships endured by his soldiers and decrying criticism by armchair strategists.

The account book of expenses kept by General Washington while head of the Continental Army was also present, showing that he expended more than $160,000 on the war.

The General's own copy of the Constitution was included, with corrections in his handwriting.

The original manuscript of President Washington's Farewell Address of September 17, 1796, as he announced that he would not accept re-nomination to the Presidency for a third term, was aboard the train.

Marquis Childs, in Chicago, tells of the present boom in America, with all its usual glitter and flash, but appearing in this instance to have more substance than that of the Twenties, which had led to the Crash and Depression. Certain incidents of the earlier era were repeating, however, such as high food prices, presently at 164 percent of the average for 1935-39, the base level for computing change. Those salaried workers who were not unionized and persons living on fixed incomes were acutely feeling the pinch of inflation, leading to tension in the society.

Many of the old values, he finds, had gone by the boards. In the past, Thanksgiving was never a Roman holiday as it was now being celebrated, especially among the thousands attending college football games. Traditionally, it had been a day of giving thanks to God for seeing man through another year and for the food on the table.

Europeans were fond of charging Americans with materialism. But Europe was in the ashes of its own materialism and a strong sense of idealism had traditionally characterized America, to which Europe had often been beneficiary.

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