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.
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":