Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the partition of
Palestine was expected to be approved in the U.N. General Assembly
later this date—as it would be the following day. Secretary-General Dr. Oswaldo
Aranha of Brazil predicted that the vote would be at least 31 to 15
in favor of the Soviet-American plan for partition, possibly 33 to 13, in either event
enough to surpass the needed two-thirds majority. Pakistan, Cuba,
and Iraq contended that high pressure tactics were being employed by
"great powers" to obtain the favorable vote, by
implication suggesting the U.S. and Russia.
The Senate voted to ban Austria, Italy, and France from
purchasing arms with any of the 597 million dollars worth of
emergency aid. Final vote on the aid package was expected to occur
Monday.
At the London foreign ministers conference, France proposed
that Russia receive from Austria 100 million dollars worth of
Austrian production, that of the Zisterdorf oil fields and from
shipping on the Danube, as reparations under the Austrian treaty. A
Russian source said that the Soviets would reject the proposal,
designed as a compromise on what constituted true German assets
within Austria, the limit of reparations for Russia pursuant to the
Potsdam accord.
The foreign ministers of the Big Four meanwhile were
consulting anent the German treaty.
France called an additional 80,000 troops to colors to meet
the emergency crisis building in the country regarding the
nationwide strike involving two million workers, stimulated by the
Communist-dominated labor union. The new forces would bring the
total to fifteen divisions deployed within the previous week.
In Milan, thousands of workers participated in a one-day
general strike, paralyzing the city's transportation. The strike was
in protest of the Government's removal of Ettore Troilo, a member of
the Leftist Action Party, as prefect of Milan. The Mayor of Milan
resigned in sympathy, as had 160 Communist and Socialist mayors
throughout the province. In response, the military garrison in Milan
was mobilized to take control of the city.
Secretary of Commerce Averell Harriman told the joint
Economic Committee of the hope for lower prices on lumber, meat, and
steel to come from the President's ten-point anti-inflation program.
Senator Robert Taft had expressed his belief that the Administration
was not in good faith in asking for limited authority over
allocation controls while actually wanting unlimited controls, a
claim confuted by Secretary Harriman.
On the Chicago Board of Trade, December wheat hit a 30-year
high at $3.16.75 per bushel while December oats hit a record of
$1.26.5. May wheat also hit a record-high of $3 per bushel.
The U.S. Embassy in New Delhi was investigating reports that
a former Army sergeant was leading a company of northwest frontier
tribal raiders against the Indian and Kashmir State Army forces in
southern Kashmir. The former sergeant was reported by a British
correspondent who had interviewed him to be wearing cowboy regalia
and as having left a road construction job in Afghanistan to join
the invaders of Kashmir. He claimed to have been part of the
Canadian Army when it invaded Dieppe in August, 1942, suffering
severe losses.
General LeClerc, the armored warfare leader of France during
the war who had distinguished himself in the North African campaign
of the U.S. Third Army, was killed in an airplane crash in the
Sahara Desert.
In Wayland, Mass., the nude, frozen body of a 22-year old
graduate student from Radcliffe College was found with a rifle shot
through the head. A Winchester .22 rifle was found ten or fifteen
feet from the young woman's body. State detectives believed it would
have been possible for her to move the distance after being shot.
Her car was found nearby with a bill of sale for the rifle inside.
In Cherryville, N.C., a new Recorder's Court judge shot
himself just above the heart while sitting in his car at his home,
was in critical condition.
Doris Duke Rubirosa had returned to the United States and
would shortly join her new husband, Dominican Ambassador to
Argentina, in Buenos Aires.
In Charlotte, at 5:30 a.m., a man fell dead in the street
from a cerebral hemorrhage and a car driven by a doctor then passed
over the body. A coroner's report showed the man was already dead
when struck.
News reporter Tom Lynch reports on the dedication of
Bob Jones University in Greenville, S.C., on page 19-A.
In Charlotte, "Rededication Week" began with
"Labor-Management Day". Industrial plants in the city,
equipped with public address systems, would lead workers in the
"Freedom Pledge", one line of which went, "Free to
speak—without fear."
On the editorial page,
"Our Week of Rededication"
tells of the Freedom Train coming to Charlotte on December 4, with
its message of new hope and purpose, exampled by the founding
documents of the nation aboard. It suggests special meaning for
Charlotte and Mecklenburg, where the concept of freedom took early
root in the colonies, and, according to legend, had its birth. The
visitors to the train would see that freedom and democracy were not
merely the result of laws and documents but rather consisted of a
concept and a promise.
The week would include, in addition to Labor-Management Day, Agriculture Day, Freedom of Religion Day, School Day, Veterans' Day, and Women's Day, prior to the arrival of the train on Thursday.
"For Harding, Central and Tech" suggests that the
three R's had been supplanted by the three F's, football, fandom,
and finances, at the city's high schools. The average student knew
as much of football plays as the Pythagorean theorem. The students'
interests were, however, a function of parental guidance.
Harding High had enjoyed the greatest fan support in its
history, with 2,100 having turned out to see its opening game against Mt.
Airy. Central had won the Western Class AA championship and was
attracting crowds in the range of 13,000. Tech had won seven and
lost three, with two ties, having one of its greater seasons.
It provides "the three R's Men of the Season in the
three F's" to the coaches of the three high schools—whatever
that was supposed to mean.
"Farm Policy in North Carolina" tells of those
formulating Government agricultural policy favoring a temporary
switch during 1948 from diversification to grain production to allow
for foreign consumption, despite the risk of soil depletion for
farmers.
North Carolina farmers produced only 2.7 percent of the corn
and less than a percent of the winter wheat of the nation and so
were less affected by the change than those of other states. The
state's agricultural staples were tobacco and cotton and so its
agricultural base would have little impact on relief of the European
countries under the Marshall Plan. The state's farmers, it suggests,
ought be moving toward diversification and soil conservation
efforts, notwithstanding the new program urged by the Government, as
a two-crop economy was passe and economically limiting.
North Carolina's farm population was exceeded only by Texas
and yet its per farm cash income ranked 38th among the states. It
was no less patriotic to follow a plan to eradicate farm poverty
than to abandon temporarily the diversificationprogram as
recommended by the Government.
A piece from the Christian Science Monitor, titled
"Politicians Are People", records that a Gallup poll
showed that parents did not want their children entering politics as
they believed it led to "graft and crookedness". The piece
thinks it unhealthy to a democracy to have such a perception
prevailing. It shifted blame for the country's own shortcomings to a
convenient scapegoat. Politicians, it ventures, were also human
beings and there were proportions of bad and good among them equal
to the similarly situate of the general population.
Politicians had weighty responsibilities and had to engage in
compromise to get things done. It was not to excuse the occasional
corruption, but when it occurred, someone had to be responsible for
producing the conditions which led to it, such as supplying the
inducements of gifts and favors.
Society got the politicians it deserved and when it learned
to appreciate the vagaries of being a public servant, as well the
achievements when they occurred, encouraged instead young people to
seek a life in politics, then the public would be less likely to
engage in cynical, self-righteous condemnation.
Drew Pearson tells of the most recent meeting of the Senate
Republican Policy Committee having resulted in many new Senators
voicing the opinion that the party had to turn from destructive
criticism to constructive policies. Senator John Sherman Cooper of
Kentucky criticized Senator Taft for his quick reply to the Truman
ten-point anti-inflation program prior to any serious study of the
points—seeking, as it were, to stop the rising horns of the buck. He believed examination of the program was in order,
maintaining in the process an open mind. He cited the loss in the
gubernatorial election in Kentucky as a sign of incumbent problems
for the GOP unless things were to change.
Senators Ralph Flanders of Vermont and Ray Baldwin of
Connecticut agreed that the Senator from Ohio had prematurely jumped
on the President. Mr. Pearson notes that the subcommittee on Eastern
living costs, of which the two Senators had been members, had
delivered a report which supplied the basis for the bulk of the
President's recommendations, less that of wage and price controls
and rationing. Senator Flanders reminded Senator Taft of this fact
and suggested that he should have consulted with other Republican
leaders before making his opposition statement.
Senator Edward Thye of Minnesota expressed the belief that
farmers were upset because of the perceived indifference of the GOP
to their plight and believed the Republicans had tried to scuttle
some of the Government program beneficial to them. With the
exception of wheat producers, farmers were not pleased with current
prices. With feed prices and labor costs high, dairy farmers
were netting less against the high cost of living than during the
days of OPA. Gross receipts were up, but net was down.
Generally, Senator Taft did not fare well in the
behind-closed-doors meeting.
Mr. Pearson notes that many of the freshman Senators so
making statements had been governors and had long experience in
public affairs.
Marquis Childs, in Ames Iowa at Iowa State College, tells of
the school being a leader in agricultural sciences and the
advancements derived from them for adequate crop systems to feed the
growing population of the country through the ensuing decades and
through the next century. By continuing current soil conservation
techniques which the Government had taught during the New Deal and
by developing new methods of conservation and development of 80
million acres of undeveloped good-crop land, in need of irrigation
and clearing, the food supply for the country could be sustained
indefinitely, without depleting the soil from bumper crops as were
currently being produced.
It was predicted that given the estimated population increase
by 1960, there would be an arable soil deficit absent development
of the unused land and application of soil conservation techniques
to that quarter or so of the arable acreage to which they had not
yet been applied.
Meanwhile, the soil conservation service budget had been
slashed by Congress from 1.4 million dollars to a little over a
million, when ten times that amount was needed.
It was evident in any event that the Midwest was abandoning
its isolationist tradition, a fact of great political significance
to the country.
Samuel Grafton tells of Governor Thomas Dewey recently having
made a speech at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York in which he
plaintively sought aid for Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalist Government
in China in their fight against the Communists of the North. He
expressed amazement that the President had said nothing about China
as part of the Marshall Plan.
Mr. Dewey needed to oppose parts of the foreign policy while
generally lending his approval to it. Sometimes he did so by taking
credit for much of it; other times, as on this occasion, he claimed
to support it while saying it was not very good.
But despite the Governor's carping regarding supposed
ignoring of China, the Administration had in fact considered the
plight of the civil war beset country in depth. Chiang's Government
had been found to be full of corruption, with U.S. aid to the
country misused for ends other than its intended purpose. The result was
to encourage more Chinese to convert to Communism.
Secretary Marshall had been in China in 1946 as the
President's special emissary and knew the country's problems far
better than Governor Dewey. Secretary Marshall believed that only
the liberals could save China, that the reactionaries in power in
the Chiang Government were worthy of condemnation.
To "preserve democracy" in China, as demanded by
Governor Dewey, was to blink the fact that there was no democratic
freedom in the first instance in the country to be revitalized and
preserved. Mr. Dewey wanted preservation of any anti-Communist
organization, no matter its character, whether democratic or
reactionary.
The New York Governor and GOP candidate for the 1948
presidential nomination appeared to be fulfilling the prophecy made
by General Marshall the previous January, that the reactionaries of the
Government of Chiang counted on substantial American support for
their cause.
A piece regarding the
Freedom Train, absent a by-line,
presumably continuing the series of Charles W. Duke from Editor &
Publisher, discusses religious freedom in the country from its
earliest days, as characterized by the First Amendment freedom of
religion and establishment clauses of the Constitution, amply
represented on the train. The train carried the 1644 Statement of
Religious Freedom by Roger Williams, founder of the Rhode Island
Colony.
A 1644 edition of the Bay Psalm Book, first printed in 1640
by Stephen Daye, was also included.
A copy of the Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom in
Virginia, composed by Thomas Jefferson, was also among the documents
in the exhibit. First introduced in 1779 in the Virginia House of
Delegates but, for conservative opposition, not being passed until
1786, Mr. Jefferson had asked that he be credited with its
authorship on his tombstone. The exemplar aboard the train was from
1784. It set the standard for guarantee of religious freedom
embodied in the First Amendment.