The Charlotte News

Wednesday, December 31, 1947

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that military authorities in Greece stated that the guerrillas were withdrawing from the besieged perimeter of Konitsa and that the battle was virtually over. The guerrillas had sought the town near the Albanian border as a capital for the "free state", declared on Christmas Eve by General Markos Vafiades, guerrilla leader.

Undersecretary of State Robert Lovett suggested that should Russia or its satellites recognize the newly declared "free state" in Northern Greece, they would provoke a showdown with the U.S., that such a stance would be a departure from the U.N. Charter. Diplomats suggested that a response would likely be to divert to military purposes more of the 300 million dollars in aid appropriated under the Truman Doctrine for Greece, and to increase the size of the U.S. military mission in the country. The U.S. would also seek active assistance from other U.N. member nations.

King Mihai I, who abdicated the throne of Rumania the previous day, leaving governance to the Communist-dominated Parliament, applied for a passport and was expected to leave the country, probably for Switzerland.

The U.S. announced to all nations that it would be conducting atomic tests from Eniwetok, beginning at the end of January, and to keep ships out of a 39,000 square mile area throughout 1948. The area was about half that set aside for the two Bikini tests of July, 1946.

The President stated at a press conference that he believed the year had been a good year but not as good as he would have liked. He congratulated GE for voluntarily reducing prices, praising C. E. Wilson, the company's president. He said that his personal physician had done nothing wrong in trading in the commodities market. He also did not know of Ed Pauley's speculative dealings in the grain market until it had been brought forth in recent Congressional hearings. He wished everyone a happy New Year and a prosperous 1948.

He answered a reporter's question regarding the lost "half-a-loaf" anti-inflation bill, saying it had not been found and was not even a slice.

Whether he would cut his finger on it remained to be seen.

Secretary of Agriculture Clinton Anderson stated that he would recommend to the President that publication of the names of commodities speculators cease as it was causing undue damage to the reputations of persons who had done nothing wrong.

But this year and the next began the Years of Public Slander with Congressional immunity by certain Tricky individuals. Why stop now when we're having so much fun creating a domestic enemies list, dividing one American against the other in a time of peace? Peace is such a beautiful thing, bringing everyone together in harmony.

Future 1952 vice-presidential candidate Senator John Sparkman of Alabama stated that he believed the third party candidacy of former Vice-President Henry Wallace would wake up the grass roots of the Democratic Party and create greater turnout at the polls in 1948 for Democratic candidates.

Senator Glen Taylor of Idaho was strongly considering running with Mr. Wallace on the Progressive Party ticket.

In Canon City, Colo., a dozen hard-bitten criminals battered their way out of a cell block the previous night and two had been killed by officers, two others wounded, and four re-captured. More than a hundred men, augmented by National Guardsmen, were searching for the other four escapees. One of those recaptured had been bludgeoned by a ranch wife using a claw hammer.

If you see any of the four on the lam, approach with caution, unless you have a hammer and know how to use it.

Dick Young of The News tells of the death of internationally known industrial chemist Peter Gilchrist, 86, at his home in Charlotte during the morning.

The News selected its Man of the Year for Charlotte, George Ivey, the department store head who gave his time and energy to civic, business and religious affairs of the city during the year.

The building and grounds of the Charlotte Sanatorium, located at Seventh and North Church Streets, had been transferred to new ownership and it was reported that it would be converted to either a doctors' clinic or a hotel for women. The facility had been closed since sometime in 1941 and was used during the war as a hospital for Camp Sutton, later as a venereal disease clinic.

On the editorial page, "Henry Wallace, the Wrecker" finds Henry Wallace's decision to run as a third party presidential candidate to be the result either of a well-meaning man confused or a vengeful man bent on wrecking his own party. It suggests that it was possible that Mr. Wallace was both men. He had become the Sad Sack of American politics for the coming campaign year, creating confusion for everyone and bringing pain to himself.

But wait until you get a load of the new Joker on the horizon next year before awarding the Sad Sack prize.

Mr. Wallace's promise of "peace and prosperity" no longer sounded of a return to the Roosevelt era but rather of a veiled offer to "pinkos and crackpots on the extreme left". He protested that he was joking when recently he was quoted as saying that between Truman and Taft, he would vote for Taft. But a vote for Wallace in 1948 would be a vote for Taft and isolationism, hence Communism.

Communists welcomed him to the race on the notion that he would help elect an isolationist Republican, which would lead to a failure of the Marshall Plan.

"Hope for a Tax Cut in '48" finds Democratic advisers championing some form of tax cut in the new year, as a means to check forecast deflation during the latter half of 1948. The Republicans needed no convincing.

"Abel C. Lineberger's Memorial" eulogizes the passing of Mr. Lineberger of Belmont, a textile chieftain of the area. His forebears had come to the region from Alsace before the Revolution and his father built a textile mill in 1840. Mr. Lineberger had been a pioneer in the development of the combed yarn industry.

A piece from the Christian Science Monitor, titled "Alcoholics Anonymous", relates of the history of the organization, with members totaling more than 48,000 worldwide.

Their first goal was to achieve one full day without a drink and then to keep it up thereafter. No moderate drinking was tolerable for the alcoholic.

Drew Pearson, in Paris, discusses, as does Barnet Nover, the new Government of Robert Schuman in France. General De Gaulle was reported to be planning a speaking tour to drum up support for a new government to be organized under his leadership.

Premier Schuman had scarcely been heard of in either the U.S. or in France before coming to power on November 28. He had lived in a rented room in a friend's house in Paris for 28 years and led a very low profile life, even after becoming Minister of Finance a year earlier. He made few speeches and said little to the press. He had been born in Luxembourg and, it was suspected, had served in the German Army during World War I. His family had been taken under German rule in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 when their native Lorraine became German territory. When Lorraine was liberated from the Germans, Schuman was elected a member of the French Chamber of Deputies.

He had served briefly in the Vichy Government, a holdover from before the Nazi occupation, but proved too liberal and was imprisoned by the Gestapo. He escaped from Germany disguised as a school teacher on vacation, then joined the Resistance, stating that Hitler was doomed to fall.

He was a moderate politically, with left leanings, more conservative than the Socialists, but not nearly so as General De Gaulle. Schuman took the stance that the Communists were the main enemy of France and so the Gaullists voted for him.

Since election, he had become increasingly popular, especially in the way he had handled the national strike. But he had done nothing yet about inflation. A new series of strikes were expected before the winter unless inflation could be brought under rein.

Joseph Alsop describes the weighty responsibility upon the United States to take the world out of the "dark zone of war" and into the "sunlight of peace". The Soviet Union's expansionist policies had placed the country in the "zone of war" and the only way to arrest the process was through the Marshall Plan to rebuild Western Europe and to hold the line along the border between the Soviet and Western worlds.

The country therefore had to have leadership tantamount to that during the war. If Congressional isolationists were to have their way, the Plan would be condemned to fail out of the gate.

The Western world was dependent on an American food surplus. Aldous Huxley had remarked that the country had already enjoyed eight good harvests, more than vouchsafed to Pharaoh and Joseph. It would likely require reviving the food production of South America, where Argentina had its wheat production capacity cut by a million acres, and in Southeast Asia, where political chaos had prevented agricultural recovery. But the whole of the Western world was involved.

The second operation would be to hold the line against the Soviets in Greece, the Middle East, and the Far East, and for that challenge, the country was less well prepared. It would require carefully planned localized political and economic measures in Athens, Ankara, Tehran and Baghdad, in Damascus and Cairo, and Nanking. Such measures had to be coordinated with those of the British for reasons of economy.

Thus, a combined Anglo-American economic staff was essential to success of the program. But beyond that, the whole Western world had to be mobilized politically.

Barnet Nover tells of the political situation in France since a fragile coalition with the Gaullists had enabled Robert Schuman to construct a Government on November 28 to succeed that of Paul Ramadier. But on December 23, the neutrality of the Gaullists toward the new Government ended when a vote in the National Assembly on the anti-inflation measure, seeking to impose an austerity program, was resisted by the Gaullists, particularly regarding a provision requiring purchase of peacetime bonds to finance the Government. The Gaullists at that point aligned with their detested enemies, the Communists, the only party which had resisted the formation of the new Government. The measure was approved but only barely.

The primary reasons for the resistance of the Gaullists, he posits, was that the Schuman Government had accomplished what the Gaullists believed only General De Gaulle could do, elimination of confusion and division in the country, and doing so within the context of the new Constitution which General De Gaulle believed needed amendment to provide for a stronger chief executive, on the U.S. model.

Many had urged avoiding the extremes of both Communism and Gaullism, and the Schuman Government appeared to be doing that.

General De Gaulle, in the wake of the success in the municipal elections of October 27, had demanded dissolution of the Assembly after it amended the Constitution.

A letter from a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge, in December, 1944 through January, 1945, tells of finding out in a piece in the newspaper the "secret" identities of the 16 nations who would partake of the Marshall Plan—something promulgated often enough during the July-August period. He is surprised and outraged to see Switzerland, Portugal, and Eire included for their neutrality during the war. He views them as "war dodgers" and undeserving of aid.

But he failed to realize that all of Western Europe, including Italy, was to benefit under the Plan for the good of all mutually, having nothing to do with war politics. The Eastern bloc countries had also been included in the invitation to partake of the Plan, but had declined, at the insistence of the Soviets, also included in the original conception of the Plan.

Sorry, G.I., but being a veteran does not an expert on foreign affairs make you, or on how to rebuild the world after such a destructive war to prevent another one, possibly the final decision for all of Earth, pleasing only to Martians and those bent on a collective suicide.

A letter from failed Congressional candidate P. C. Burkholder again attacks the Administration for its foreign policy, appeasing, he thinks, to Communism, especially the Chinese Communists.

If you, too, wish to be a failed Republican Congressional candidate, take to heart his example and run with it over the cliff.

A letter writer complains of lack of preparedness, once again, in the country for war. He wants the country to get the lead out and get the lead in.

A Quote of the Day: "The venerable office caller opines that we need not expect the millennium until we see a bronze statue of a man and a woman who merely attended to their own business." —Columbia Maury Democrat

Happy New Year, have a prosperous 1948, 2015, or what have you in the space-time continuum, and Happy Seventh Day of Christmas: Seven hammer-toters throwing.

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