Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that in London at the
foreign minsters conference, Secretary of State Marshall had urged
Russia to provide by Monday a comprehensive statement of Russian
terms for economic unification of Germany. Secretary Marshall had
begun the debate by asking whether Russia would reduce its demand
for ten billion dollars from Germany in reparations until such time
as Germany would be back on its feet economically. The previous day,
Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin of Britain had stated that one ally
should not be demanding large reparations while the Western powers
were providing financial support to Western Germany.
Thus far, developments at the conference pointed toward
indefinite division of Germany between East and West.
In Palestine, between Jaffa and Tel Aviv, gunfire took the
lives of three more Jews during continued rioting in the wake of the
U.N. approval the previous Saturday of partition. Haganah reported
that a Palestine police armored car had killed a Jewish child and
wounded a woman, and that the British had killed another Jew. Three
members of Haganah were reported killed by police the previous day.
In Jerusalem, thousands of Jews stoned Arab businesses in
retaliation for like conduct of Arabs toward Jewish businesses
earlier in the week. The death toll of the past week in Palestine included 37 Jews, 23 Arabs, and two Armenians, while 49 had been killed
elsewhere in the Middle East.
Prince Zaid of Iraq, the Ambassador to Britain, was being
mentioned as a possible leader of the anti-partition forces among
Arabs.
The Syrian Chamber of Deputies debated whether to pass
compulsory military service to aid the Arab cause in Palestine.
In Paris, following a 21-hour session, the Council of the
Republic, the upper chamber of the Legislature, approved the
anti-strike measure already passed by the National Assembly, the
lower chamber. The bill was expected to become law within hours,
following signature by the President. It imposed severe new
penalties for sabotage and for inciting strikes or causing them to
continue.
In Rome, Communist-led workers gave the Government three days
to accept terms of employment and to punish police officers who had
fired on workers and their families in riots the previous night near
the Capitol. The National Congress of Partisans, who had fought in
the underground against the Nazis during occupation, were meeting to
determine their stance in the conflict between the Government and
striking workers.
The President, as part of the dedication ceremonies for the
Everglades National Park, spoke in Everglades City, Fla., urging
preservation of natural resources against exploitation by industry
for private gain, and development of hydro-electric power.
In Charlotte, Dr. L. R. Pruette, pastor at the Ninth Avenue
Baptist Church, passed away at age 88. Dr. Pruette had originally
established the church in a tent in 1895. The congregation then
utilized a house for its meetings for seven years before moving to
the location on Ninth Avenue.
Tom Fesperman of The News tells of four new G.M.
buses having arrived from Pontiac, Mich., to join the city's Duke
Power fleet. Another eleven were still on order and scheduled to arrive the following Tuesday. The new buses were
equipped with thermostatically controlled heaters for even
temperature distribution, green coroseal seat cushions for 32
passengers, and stainless steel rods.
What will they think of next? Bet you can't wait to ride in
one of those. That is not fakecoroseal either, son.
Ralph Gibson of The News reports of the preparations
for the Shrine Bowl high school all-star football game, set for the
afternoon of this date at 2:00, with a parade held earlier in
downtown Charlotte.
The Harding High School band played "Happy Days Are
Here Again".
Lee Kirby of WBT provided the play-by-play.
Tonight, by coincidence, there was another football game
played in Charlotte. From our vantage point, it was one humdinger of
a high school game.
On the editorial page, "A Noble Work in the Shrine Bowl"
discusses the eleventh annual game and its benefits to the community
in terms of charity, having raised $130,000 during its existence for
the Shriners' Hospital for Crippled Children in Greenville, S.C. The
hospital, as all Shrine hospitals, did not discriminate in admission
of patients.
The game had brought in $50,000 in 1946 and some 10,000 more
tickets could have been sold in 1947 were the stadium larger. It
urges an effort toward providing for a larger stadium in the future.
Better get busy. Tomorrow is now.
"Henry Wallace Flies Blind" tells of Henry
Wallace's determination to speak to non-segregated audiences during
his tour of Georgia having brought condemnation from such
progressives as Ralph McGill, editor of the Atlanta Constitution,
and former Governor Ellis Arnall.
Following the visit, Mr. Wallace had editorialized in his New
Republic, in a piece titled "The Dark South: Faint
Stirrings of Progressivism", regarding a new movement of
progress in the South, while also finding a nefarious alliance of
textile mills and large utility companies running Georgia. He then
went on to criticize the continuing Jim Crow system.
The piece finds the article to be blaming segregation
unfairly as the root of the problem and counseling that removal of
race barriers would be sine qua non to progress. It finds the
purported solution to be illusory, Mr. Wallace overly noisy and
advocating an unrealistic approach for the South. The region was
moving forward at its own pace, and would do so regardless of Mr.
Wallace's critique.
That's for sure.
"Hidden Dynamite for Charlotte" discusses the
explosion at the Rendezvous Sandwich Shop on Church Street in the
city, killing its proprietor and injuring his wife, believed related
to the proprietor's reported recently established connection with
the numbers racket.
Whether the explosion would turn out to be deliberately set
or merely an accident, it had brought to light the fact of continued
existence of the rackets in the city. With the new ABC system having
diminished the bootlegging trade, the vice operators were looking
elsewhere for profits. Gang rivalries appeared to be developing and
that would lead to murder.
The post-war period, as after World War I, was apt to see a
crime wave develop around easy money and moral laxity. The public
could not afford to be indifferent to such a rise in crime, as in
the 1920's, having led to numerous societal problems, contributing
to the Depression.
It urges that it was time for the Government of the city to
show greater interest in its law enforcement agencies and the
citizen to take a greater interest in its Government.
A piece from the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, titled "Eye
in the Heavens", tells of the installation of the giant
telescope on Mt. Palomar in Southern California, the largest such
facility in the world.
Pouring of the giant 200-inch mirror was begun at Corning
Glass in 1934. It took a year for it to cool and another five years
to grind its surface. Still in need of fine polishing, work on the
mirror was halted in 1941 for the war and resumed in September,
1945. It had finally been completed and would soon be in operation.
Its magnification would bring the moon about 10,000 times
closer to earth. Mars would be susceptible of exploration at close
range. It could see a billion light years into space and was two to
five times more powerful than the 100-inch telescope at Lick
Observatory on Mount Hamilton.
It would add greatly to man's store of knowledge as to the
origins of the universe and the birth and death cycles of the
distant stars.
Drew Pearson tells of the Republican caucus in the House
regarding the emergency aid bill, passed by the Senate. Members
spoke of wanting accountability on the aid and not following blindly
what the White House and State Department recommended. Congressman
August Andresen of Red Wing, Minn., cited the Friendship Train,
which had collected food across the country from average Americans
and private business, to be delivered to Europe, as an example of
cooperative private effort to which resort ought be made routinely
to support the aid program.
But Karl Mundt of North Dakota asserted that the greater part
of the job was to create confidence in dealing with the governments
of Europe, and that entailed supporting and encouraging those
governments. His view appeared to have the greater support.
Mr. Mundt also asserted that the Roosevelt and Truman
Administrations had made mistakes which had led to the Communist
troubles in Poland and other Eastern European countries.
The consensus was that the aid ought be handled by an
independent agency rather than by the State Department.
Question was raised on a report that Argentine wheat had been
purchased by the U.S. at $5.30 per bushel, well above the price of
wheat to American farmers, going for $3.00. But a subsequent
investigation by Congress, reports Mr. Pearson, revealed that the
U.S. had purchased 25,000 bushels at $2.67.
Former Congresswoman Clare Boothe Luce and Congressman Vito
Marcantonio of New York clashed during a radio program over whether
there would likely be a war with Russia, Ms. Luce asserting that
such a war was a certainty, while Mr. Marcantonio suggested that the
Western nations were acting as warmongers.
Diplomats suspected that one reason for moving the atomic
testing ground to Eniwetok atoll in the Pacific was the fear that an
accidental explosion could wipe out hundreds of square miles of
territory in the Western United States.
The new Jewish state in Palestine would ask for a 20 million
dollar loan to develop water power.
The Joint Chiefs debated whether it was worth the risk to
leave troops in Italy past the treaty deadline of 90 days following ratification,
coinciding with December 15. They finally decided that such a
violation might be what Moscow wanted.
Marquis Childs, in Sasabe, Arizona, tells of that region of
the country still being wild and open despite the era of the Old
West having long passed away. He tells of the sky having an infinite
appearance, with the landscape rising more crisply defined against
it than that to which the Easterner was accustomed.
What had been learned since August 6, 1945 when the Hiroshima
bomb was dropped remained only on the surface of the mind. It had
opened the door to an age in which it was now conceivable that all
mankind might vanish in a flash. But that knowledge appeared to have
been repressed by most people, as they could not conceive of the
power of the weapon.
There were occasional college groups, as the World
Federalists, formed to urge world government in the face of the
threat of the bomb. But they spent their time largely singing to the
choir. Yet, it took an informed minority to form any movement behind
leadership. There were, however, few proponents of the view with as much patience and determination as Clarence Streit, author of Union Now.
Man as a whole clung to the belief in individual escape. And
the vast expanse of Arizona and the West nurtured that sense of
insularity. But the illusion of the individual and the individual
nation had to be surrendered in the atomic age.
Stewart Alsop tells of the continuing vagueness of the
Administration's program to fight inflation, giving Senator Taft an
opening in the joint economic committee to use that fact as a
weakness. No one from the Administration testifying before the
committee had adequately answered the query as to what the
Administration wanted.
The contrast had been noted that had President Roosevelt
delivered such a message on inflation to Congress as that of
President Truman, then a detailed plan would have immediately
followed.
Secretary of Agriculture Clinton Anderson and Secretary of
the Treasury John W. Snyder were both tepid in their support of the
President's plan because both had counseled against asking for price
and wage control and rationing. Mr. Snyder had testified to Congress
against authorizing controls of bank credit, while a few hours
later, Federal Reserve Board chairman Marriner Eccles testified in
favor of it. So it was appropriate for Senator Taft to question just
what the Administration was seeking.
A letter from the secretary of the Charlotte Central Labor
Union finds the City Council jeopardizing public health by delaying
implementation of the zoning ordinance passed prior to the war, and
commends the City Manager and Mayor for declaring that housing in
the city without indoor plumbing would be eliminated.
That's a hell of an idea.
A letter from the principal of the Second Ward High School
thanks the newspaper for its support of the Queen City Classic
football game between Second Ward and West Charlotte High School on
November 6, raising $3,000 for both schools.
A letter from the chairman of the Billy Graham Revival
campaign thanks the newspaper for promoting the recent appearances
in the city of Reverend Graham. He states that the campaign had been
a great success.
A letter from the chairman of Pack 55 of the Cub Scouts
thanks the newspaper for providing the troop with a tour of its
facilities and for the articles and photos on the tour in its
December 1 edition.
A Quote of the Day: "Hattiesburg, Miss., follows the
lead of Memphis in barring the Freedom Train because it does not fit
into racial segregation. Sometimes we are afraid the South has
almost as many dumbbells to the square acre as other sections of the
country." —Greensboro Daily News
