The Charlotte News

Friday, December 19, 1947

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President had sent his written message to Congress setting forth an outline for the Marshall Plan, asking that Congress approve 17 billion dollars worth of long-term aid to be invested over a period of four years. The first installment would be 6.8 billion for the first 15 months. The President urged swift action in the new session beginning in January, to enable the program to begin by April 1. He wanted a central administrator and a deputy to administer the program, with a roving ambassador at-large.

Secretary of State Marshall, returning from the London foreign ministers conference, was planning to address the nation this night at 10:00 regarding the failure of the conference.

The Senate approved a 568 million dollar emergency aid bill, with 18 million set aside for China. The House had approved 509 million the previous day, with nothing included for China. The bills would now need to be reconciled. Both cut the aid urged by the President, 597 million. These bills were the final versions of the emergency aid, which, insofar as the first 150 million and the general approval of the aid measure, had already been passed by both houses and signed by the President.

The House passed the already Senate-approved Republican-proposed voluntary inflation control measure and sent it to the President. The bill passed after only two hours of debate without allowance for amendment. It was the fastest legislative work on a measure in years.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, on to the anti-lynching, fair employment practices, and anti-poll tax measures.

Home?

The Congress would adjourn the special session this night until the beginning of the regular session, January 6.

Okay. See you next year. But remember. There is an election coming, and the people are not quite as dumb as you obviously think.

The Senate unanimously approved a resolution to allow Secretary of Agriculture Clinton Anderson to reveal the names and addresses of speculators in the grain market and other food commodities, which had precipitated high prices. The House was attempting to iron out last-minute disagreements on a resolution to provide for the disclosures. The President had already promised to sign the measure.

Senator Charles Tobey of New Hampshire, chairman of the Senate Commerce subcommittee, urged the country voluntarily to limit its use of fuel oil to ease the shortage nationally. The only alternative, he said, would be imposed Government control. The subcommittee had received a report recommending that householders cut usage by 15 percent. The Senate small business subcommittee also had received a separate report urging conservation measures for business, and stressed that the concentration of control of the oil industry in a few companies had challenged the American concept of free enterprise to the exclusion of small business.

In Detroit, a former infantry sergeant killed an intruder at his uncle's bar and critically injured a second man, shooting him under the left eye. The two armed men had entered the bar and announced that it was a stickup, wanted each patron's Christmas money. The nephew took two revolvers, one in each hand, Earp-style, from a drawer where he had stashed them a month earlier when he heard that the bar was going to be robbed. He then opened up, firing seven times.

Vigilante justice and the Second Amendment have triumphed once again in the Wild West.

Hey, would you want to be robbed of your watch and Christmas money in a bar six days before Christmas? You wouldn't be able to afford even a puppy or a toy gun which sparks for the little ones. Is it not better to have witnessed one useless, pathetic excuse for a human being getting shot through the heart and another shot below the eye? That will show them. They will have no Christmas.

All of the gun advocates can praise this Christmas the glory of this fine, upstanding example of American citizen-justice at work. Who needs the courts or the police when Earp is around? We should all arm ourselves so that crime can be prevented in just this manner.

The piece does not explain how the man came to know that the bar was going to be robbed. But that is an incidental detail.

In Hepworth, Ontario, two boys went out to cut down a Christmas tree for their school teacher and did not return. They were found dead from exposure to the cold.

The North Carolina Supreme Court unanimously upheld, as a proper exercise of state police power, the constitutionality of the 1947 legislative act banning the closed shop, affirming the convictions of two defendants who tested its constitutionality by violating the law. The Court determined that the State had power to condemn private contracts deemed injurious to the public welfare. It found the "right to work" no less entitled to dignity than the right to contract freely. Thus, there was no violation of due process, as contended, under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

To hell with the impairment clause. We don't need it in North Carolina. We have pine trees.

The Court also reversed a conviction and ordered a new trial for a man accused of murder and previously sentenced to death. The prosecutor improperly had claimed to the jury during argument that not more than 60 percent of prisoners convicted of capital offenses were executed, an argument outside the evidence in the case and prejudicial to the defendant.

In Lenoir, N.C., defendant R. L. Fritz, former principal of the high school accused of misappropriating $1,600 in school funds for the purpose of paying regular teachers for overtime to keep the school operating, was examined by both defense counsel and the prosecution. He stated that the manner of accounting at the school had received approbation from the Caldwell County school superintendent. He said that he had divided the work load between regular and substitute teachers and made payments based on the division of duties. His wife, who worked at the school, received what was left, $621.

There is no indication as to whether anyone asked him whether the purpose might be hush-money. That might be best left to Charlotte to answer.

James Howey, News correspondent in Lancaster, S.C., tells the first-person story of John Summers, missing mill overseer from Belmont, who had taken the mill workers' Christmas fund, with which he was entrusted, and absconded for several days, after leaving a note by the Catawba River saying he was going to drown himself, resulting in the river being dragged the previous weekend by police.

He tells of having taken on the duty of business manager of the Belmont baseball team the previous spring, leading to his problems. He had dipped into the fund for $300 to finance the team because the gate did not adequately provide after the initial authorized expenditure of $1,700 by the mill workers to support the formation of the team.

Also, one of the two cars he operated for the team was wrecked and had run over a boy in Gastonia, requiring cash settlement of the matter.

He was told that the fund was short by about $6,200. He had been sick, he says, and would return the money as soon as he got well.

He appreciates the fact that the people of Belmont had not pressed charges against him and trusted him to be honest. He had thought that he would receive some of the baseball team's profits and use that to replenish the fund. But the profits did not materialize.

In Glen Cove, N.Y., seven police officers were required to hold back a thousand disgruntled children who wanted to obtain gifts from Santa Claus. Santa had arrived by train the previous afternoon, accompanied by a 100-piece band, then went to the business district aboard his sleigh filled with gifts, supplied by the local Chamber of Commerce. The excited children then cornered Santa and pushed him down to the ground and trampled him.

After he recovered with the help of the police, he gave out candy to the disturbed children. But they thought they were to receive the packages. He sought to tell them that the packages were for disabled veterans, but their shouts drowned him out and they snatched the gifts from the sleigh and began tearing them open. Then, upon discovery of the vacuity of the faux packages, the delinquents tossed them back at Santa and mauled him, until the police could effect his rescue once again.

Said one boy, "Santa Claus is a liar."

All that glisters...

The Chamber of Commerce, wethinks, should have, to settle restive spirits, given the young boys and girls free tickets to "Miracle on 34th Street", probably playing at the local Bijou. Of course, the Bijou management might have been wary of having the theater wrecked, should the young boys and girls determine that the film was not in accord with their theatrical tastes.

Incidentally, to the greedy who continue to jerk old material from the internet after it is posted there for some time, without being the least creative in obtaining sponsorship for continuation of its presence and leaving alone for free access old tv shows and other material that no one in their right mind would wish to pay a penny to see afresh, as, usually, they did not have to pay to see the presentations the first time or more around, we hope you stop playing Scrooge in your absurd greed, collecting money for material with which, in most cases, you had absolutely nothing to do in producing or creating, but because of some deal you made for pennies on the dollar, have acquired ostensible control, or at least claim such, with regard to a "copyright", the laws on which are absurdly abused. We do not wish you anything but a Scrooged Christmas. Catch your copyrighted material within a few days of its posting or leave it alone or make a deal with the medium in which it appears for commercial sponsorship, probably worth far more than any marketability you might foresee in your fantastical golden visions. We hate to abuse your fragile egos but movies and other material over five years old typically do not get seen or heard except on free tv or radio or from one's own personal collection, anyway. They are not big sellers.

Stop and consider the overall issue. It is fine to stop someone profiting from the work or claiming credit for something someone else created, but not the way you, Scrooge, use and abuse rights under copyright laws. We have the distinct impression that you allow posting of this material, in your self-perceived grand gesture of largesse, until it begins apparently to attract a free audience of some number and then, with dollar signs dancing in your head, computed on the basis of the free audience, jerk it to try to reap a profit, a cutthroat form of enterprise which is bound to fail and take you down with it as people perceive what you are.

The banner at the bottom of the page again reminds that the eleemosynary Empty Stocking Fund drive was falling short of its goal, less than a week before Santa's arrival, to supply needy families Christmas.

Get busy, Charlotte. Or else another Glen Cove could be the result.

On the editorial page, "Charlotte Meets an Emergency" praises Mayor Herbert Baxter for meeting the fuel oil shortage in the community with an emergency program to allocate the scarce oil across the community until the crisis would ease after the first of January. It suggested itself as a means to meet the national problems of scarce commodities, including fuel oil.

"South Carolina 'Streamlining'" discusses a State Government reorganization bill championed by Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and passed by the State House in its last session, soon to come before the State Senate. It was an effort long overdue as no change of the cumbersome, overlapping bureaucracy in the state had taken place since the 1895 State Constitution had been implemented. The piece thinks the move to signal progress in the state.

But it takes more than government reorganization to make government responsive to the people, all the people, not just the rich or politically powerful white people.

"Knutson & Taft Make Bait" finds the effort of Senator Taft to get the Republican voluntary inflation control bill passed in the closing days of the special session and Representative Harold Knutson's effort to propose a new tax bill for the coming regular session to make sense only in terms of Republican politics. If controls were needed, then they should be controls with some teeth, not the dishwater of Senator Taft's last-minute measure. The Taft alternative would only delay real inflation control by several months while the voluntary program, assured from the outset of failure, was in place. It was simply a political trick to enable shifting of blame to Democrats, whether or not the bill was passed.

Mr. Knutson's measure was inflationary, not the reverse, as he was trying to maintain. It would place more money in the hands of consumers and the resulting inflation would likely counteract any benefit afforded by the measure to lower bracket taxpayers and those removed from any tax liability.

Both Republican offerings were merely sucker bait for 1948.

A short piece from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch places in meter the report from Tokyo of a ban on public kissing save on benches in the public park.

Drew Pearson tells of the Army having maintained silence on how a leak had occurred in radar technology, enabling it to be obtained by foreign governments during the war. RCA had appropriated the secret of radar before the war and provided it to the Germans and Japanese. Radar had been developed by the Signal Corps of the Army in 1936. William Hershberger, who had worked on the project, resigned and joined within a few months RCA. RCA, in early 1938, filed for a patent on radar, listing one of its laboratory men and Mr. Hershberger as the inventors. The Army prevented the patent from being issued until June 4, 1946. But it could not stop RCA from seeking patents in foreign countries, and Australia and New Zealand both issued patents on the technology. RCA then published the information for the world. Germany and Japan refused RCA patents, but the governments were then free to take the information from the applications.

RCA knew of the military significance of radar and there was thus no excuse for its behavior.

Shortly afterward, in September, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland and the war began. Following the war, the Army sought to have the Justice Department sue RCA for the costly breach of security. It had refrained from seeking such a suit earlier to avoid focusing world attention on the importance attached to the device by the Army.

But without explanation, the Army suddenly cooled its ardor in pursuing the suit. General Harry Ingles, retired chief of the Signal Corps, had taken a job with RCA on March 31, 1947. The Justice Department was still considering the suit but it was unlikely that action would be taken.

Europeans in droves were buying American magazines and attending American movies, with the result that millions of dollars in foreign currencies, for the fact of the dollar scarcity, were accumulating in the capitals of Europe. Whether and when they would later be exchanged for dollars was not clear. MPAA head Eric Johnston had proposed that employees of the U.S. Information Service be paid in francs on the accounts of the publishers and movie companies, with the U.S. Government then paying off the domestic offices of the companies in dollars. Congress appeared to approve the idea and possibly would extend the program to payments to Government personnel working abroad to administer the Marshall Plan.

Secretary of the Army Kenneth Royall had done nothing about the revelations that his assistant, Ed Pauley, had been speculating in the grain market, despite his statement that if it proved true, it was shocking.

Democrats speculated whether DNC chairman Senator Howard McGrath wanted Jim Farley to be the vice-presidential candidate in 1948, for the the fact of the Senator's recent praise of Mr. Farley at a dinner, granting him status equal to his former boss, FDR.

Samuel Grafton tells of some delight being exhibited among most American commentary from the fact that Russia, too, had a problem with inflation. But the editorial commentary had a tinge of being "wan and sickly" for the expression, suggesting fear of any report of Russian prosperity. It was no way to win the great debate, to wish the other fellow ill.

And Russia, at least, was doing something about its inflation, devaluing the ruble, even if the plan was crude and presented to the Russian people as a final plan, sans debate. America was taking no affirmative action.

The delight in the prospect of Russian inflation showed that America was hoping to win the debate through Russia's failures rather than America's successes. It was unnecessary, as Americans could agree to establish rationing again, temporarily to keep excess wartime profits from being able to compete in the marketplace for the necessities of life until the economy could readjust to peacetime pressures on prices.

During the war, the story of devaluation in Russia would have been simply a passing bit of news. Then, Americans had enough self-confidence to take an affirmative approach and not to engage in the dangerous word, "too". America had enough prosperity at home not to participate in this form of competition, but rather allow the finger pointing to remain with those behind the eight-ball.

Victor Riesel, labor columnist, discusses Henry Wallace's tour across the country having been a free ride of handshakes and approbation. But now, as he was being courted by the Progressive Party as a possible presidential candidate, he would be called upon by labor to make his peace with the Democrats and stop challenging the President. For it had been labor which had made him. Thus, in the coming weeks, he would have to choose between the labor movement and a handful of "extreme leftists" in the Progressive Party.

The third party advocates were trying to get John L. Lewis to become the labor wing of the movement, as evidenced by the Daily Worker's reportage, interviewing selected coal miners who favored the action of Mr. Lewis in taking UMW out of the AFL.

The leftists' argument was that both Mr. Lewis and Mr. Wallace were opposed to the Marshall Plan, were both isolationists, and both disliked the President. Both had spoken in the past of leading a farmer-labor movement. (Mr. Wallace had consistently been a leading internationalist, was criticized for being too much so, and could hardly be described as an isolationist or as someone who "hated" the President.)

But soon there would be a concerted attempt to convince Mr. Wallace to join the labor movement in support of the Democrats again.

Joseph Alsop, still in London, tells of the failed London foreign ministers conference having resulted in the East-West split and that soon the Big Three Western foreign ministers would need begin to organize Western Germany. The only hope left for unity would be in Moscow eventually being so impressed with Western unity that a shift in Soviet policy would take place.

The most important part of the Western unity was a strong Anglo-American partnership. If it were ever to dissolve, the way would be left open for the Kremlin to have its way without effective opposition.

The British were partners in whom investment could be made without risk. Their only deficit was in capital and the U.S. would need supply that deficit sufficiently to enable Britain to reacquire its strength financially on a permanent basis. The petty irritations in economic and diplomatic circles would need be remedied to complement the military unity enjoyed for some time. Without this economic unity, Britain would be left to form a new foreign policy which could bring it into the Russian sphere of influence. The U.S. had to overcome the pervasive British fear of loss of independence to America through economic dependence. The wartime atmosphere of cooperation needed to replace the fear of American bullying.

Secretary of State Marshall and his staff were mindful of these issues and much had already been accomplished toward ameliorating the problems. All of the frictions had been produced by ignorance and suspicion caused by ignorance, and a common policy needed to be formulated to cover all areas of common interest between the two nations. It would probably need take the same form in the economic and diplomatic spheres as the combined military chiefs of staff.

The most salutary aspect of the aftermath of the conference was that such a solution was being sought.

Another "pome" appears from the Atlanta Journal, this one "pointing out that miserly people do not get the most out of living":

Folks who are stingy
Live lives bare and dingy.

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