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.