The Charlotte News

Friday, June 20, 1947

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President had vetoed the Taft-Hartley bill and the House then promptly, after hearing the President's veto message read to them and without debate, voted 331 to 83 to override the veto. Of the House members voting to override, 106 were Democrats while 71 Democrats voted to sustain.

All of North Carolina's 12-member delegation voted to override, with the exception of Representative John Folger. South Carolina's delegation was unanimous in voting to override.

It left the matter up to the Senate, where the President was seeking support, meeting with ten Democratic Senators who had voted for the bill, plus Senator Milton Young of North Dakota, a Republican reported to be unenthusiastic about the bill, and Senator John Overton of Louisiana, a Democrat, absent during the original vote. None of the Senators at the conference, reported Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, had indicated that they would shift their votes. Senator Russell said he would consider it after hearing the President's veto message.

Twelve other Democrats who had voted for the bill had not been invited to the conference, and Senator George Aiken of Vermont, who had stated that he might change his mind, had declined an invitation to attend.

The President was to deliver a radio address this night to provide his arguments for vetoing the bill. The President believed the bill unworkable, would promote strikes, and would inject Government into labor issues as never before. He stated that the provision which allowed a ban from collective bargaining of any union found to have Communists or sympathizers among its officers would only encourage Communists by producing confusion and disorder. He found the bill a threat to successful working of the democratic society. He stated that the national emergency provisions of the bill, to enable an injunction against strikes for 80 days in such instances, would only encourage rather than prevent mass work stoppages. The vote of the union on the employer's offer under those circumstances would almost always be negative, giving the union greater authority in bargaining under Government auspices. Moreover, after a fact-finding report, if the dispute were not resolved, the President would have to turn the matter over to Congress for further efforts at resolution, placing economic disputes within the political arena.

Senator Robert Taft arranged to respond after the President's message.

The Senate was seeking to arrange a vote on the veto the following day.

UAW president Walter Reuther praised the veto.

Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin told Commons that he was tired of having economic recovery in Europe frustrated by Soviet failure to cooperate. Now, Britain had the backing of the U.S. in providing aid to enable going forward with a plan.

At the U.N., the Soviet representatives withdrew from a meeting of the Military Staff Committee following a disagreement on procedure for addressing an Australian request for clarification of two articles in the Committee's report being considered by the Security Council, anent the establishment of an international police force to be set up under the Council. Andrei Gromyko explained that the representatives believed that they should not sit on matters involving individual nations, but only regarding questions submitted by the Council itself. He said that Russia would not consider itself bound by any action taken by representatives of the other Big Five nations on the Committee.

The problem erupted when the Security Council president, Alexandre Parodi of France, invited General Joseph McNarney, the Committee chair, to answer the questions posed by Australia. In the absence of General McNarney, Brig. General C. P. Cabell took his place, a move to which the Soviets registered objection, that General Cabell was not authorized to speak for the Committee and that the Committee had not interpreted the points in question. Eventually, General McNarney answered the questions, in a reply drafted by the members of the Big Five, excluding Russia.

General Cabell, it should be noted, was to become in 1953 Deputy Director of the CIA until being asked to resign by President Kennedy in early 1962 after the Bay of Pigs fiasco of April, 1961. General Cabell went home to his native Dallas, the Mayor of which was his brother, Earle Cabell, continuing in that role through early 1964, at which time he resigned to run for Congress, where he served until 1973. General Cabell was implicated by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison as being part of the conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy.

In Paris, amid continuing national strikes by bank and department store employees and demands by autoworkers for higher wages, the Cabinet agreed to a save-the-franc tax program designed to balance the budget. The tax bill would raise about 140 billion francs in additional revenue, but would mean higher costs for bread, milk, farm products, railroad transport, tobacco, gasoline and telegraph and postal rates.

In Capodistria, Yugoslavia, Monsignor Antonio Santin, Roman Catholic bishop of Capodistria and Trieste, had been mauled by a mob the previous day as he was about to lead the Saint's Day procession through the community.

In Pinecliff, Colo., a retired school teacher was being sought for questioning in the slayings of two sisters, one of whom was a renowned educator in the state, both of whom had been his friends. Both sisters had been shot in the head. A Denver detective stated that the theory being pursued was that the school teacher wanted the two sisters to accompany him to Illinois because they were unable to care for themselves any longer. He had expressed to neighbors the belief that when people reach such an old age, they should be shot. The school teacher had been at the cabin the afternoon before discovery of the bodies, and neighbors had seen him drive away. He apparently then boarded a freight train shortly thereafter, leaving his car nearby. The coroner said that death had occurred at around 4:00 p.m. the previous day.

On page 2-A, radio critic John Crosby tells of a broadcast which he did not like by WOR in New York, in which America was destroyed by atomic bombs.

On the editorial page, "And Now the Consumer's Inning" tells of the indications being that the dollar was beginning to buy more in quality, if not quantity, for the consumer's bang, as shoddy goods were gradually disappearing from the shelves. The average bargain hunter would no longer bag them. Business Week had referred to the phenomenon as a "hidden price increase" within the context of higher than prewar prices, but for better goods.

J. A. Daly of The News had found that in response to the first wave of consumer timidity, the textile industry had improved the quality and strength of its goods by substituting better grade cotton to make the yarn. While not reducing price, the consumer was able to shoot a better shirt down from the rack in suit for his habit.

The same was true in furniture, where arms and legs and backs were not as likely to break as soon or as easily, were as durable now as seats, where the bedhead was as good as the stead, fit for a rock, where hard sugar pine could substitute for knotty and get away with it.

If the consumer could maintain his income in the period of rising value and falling costs, he might finally taste the prosperity so long reserved for the producer.

"The Citizens for Temperance" tells of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, in searching for a parallel to the campaign in Mecklenburg anent the referendum on ABC stores, finding the "Friends of Temperance" in Virginia in 1865. They, too, as the ministers and laymen opposing alcohol in the latter day, were concerned with its evil influence. Yet, they had reconciled themselves also to the futility of fighting for prohibition and instead resolved to fight to eradicate the desire for strong drink.

The piece suggests it as the worthy goal still to be pursued.

"Fall of the Invisible Empire" remarks, as does Drew Pearson, on the the voluntary surrender of the Georgia charter by the Klan, under a deal whereby charges were dismissed against it, stipulating that the Klan had violated the terms of its charter. While the Klan could still reorganize under a different charter, the move appeared to have extinguished it as a national organization, and it was done to death by the State of Georgia, acting on its own initiative, not from outside interference.

The New Orleans States had viewed it as typical cowardice on the part of the Klan to surrender its charter in such fashion, just as the organization hid behind masks.

Query whether, given such routine baiting in the press, some of the membership, especially those who had been veterans and were sensitive thus to being called cowards, decided, as in the cases of Emmett Till in 1955 and the three civil rights workers in 1964, to shed their robes and caps and come out fully into the open, just as had the lynch mob of some 25 to 30 men at Moore's Ford in Georgia the previous July in murdering in broad daylight two white couples, as had the cab drivers in Greenville, S.C., in lynching Willie Earle the previous February, none of them donning Klan regalia to perform the old ritual.

So ingrained in the population, especially the working classes, were the notions of racial superiority, so confident therefore in the largesse of the jury to be chosen from among their peers, that the small town refugees from reality, atavists seeking comfort in the quaintness of storied ledgers anent the nineteenth century crusades of warring blades who they could claim, many times in fact, as their own grandfathers or those of their friends, descended of clan chieftains of the old country, that the Klan was merely a formalized expression of those traits which could persist quite apart from it, openly, even if continuing to be cloaked in the tradition of it without its garb.

A piece from the Charleston News & Courier, titled "Not Even as a Gift", finds the suggestion by the News & Courier that South Carolina and North Carolina be amalgamated into union being greeted with disdain by North Carolina newspapers—as it had been in The News on June 12. The "Rhamkatte Roaster" in the Raleigh News & Observer found the suggestion absurd as it would lead to loss of two Senators. But the editorial, it remarks, seemed to have forgotten that the states were voting in the Senate as a bloc anyway.

The Asheville Citizen reacted with rudeness.

The newspaper, while not hurt, was reeling in disappointment at the reaction. It had thought that North Carolinians would react with glee at the notion of receiving South Carolina as a gift. It was not gleeful itself at the prospect of becoming part of North Carolina but was tempted by the notion of being rid of the control exerted politically by the Barnwell County ring and being subject to a bonus-voting Legislature.

With a little creativity, they should have simply made the suggestion for a goodwill trade with California, dividing that state, as proposed for many decades, in twain, and then combining the Carolinas, with the proviso that each of the two new Senators for California would vote with the Carolina Senators for the ensuing eighteen years. Then, no doubt, the suggestion would have passed in all three states.

But the problem would be that then you would set up a domino effect in which New York would seek a like trade with the Dakotas, and Florida would seek pairing with the new state of Misskansowari, Texas with Idatanaming, Pennsylvania with Colorewashada, and New Jersey with Alalouisexico, and so on and so forth, until there were only about thirteen states remaining, leading inexorably to civil war to divide them up again.

Drew Pearson tells of the President selecting another Wall Street banker, General Charles Saltzman, to be the Assistant Secretary of State in charge of rebuilding Germany. He was the vice-president of the New York Stock Exchange. The appointment had received criticism inside the Administration for the existing proliferation of Wall Street bankers at State. Secretary of State Marshall had leaned toward military men in naming assistants. While General Saltzman was an able man, the concern was that another military man with Wall Street connections could lead to building up Germany militarily again, as after World War I. The banking house of Brown Brothers-Harriman, from which had come new Undersecretary of State Robert Lovett, replacing Dean Acheson, was a major lender to Germany prior to Hitler. Likewise had been Dillon-Reed, from which had come Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, appointed in 1944 by President Roosevelt.

Elder statesman Herbert Hoover was seeking the signature of elder statesman Bernard Baruch on a letter sent to Senator Styles Bridges of New Hampshire cautioning that the U.S. was sending more of its natural resources to Europe than it could afford—the subject of Samuel Grafton's piece this date. Mr. Baruch refused because he accused Mr. Hoover of stealing information developed at length by Mr. Baruch, General Marshall, and Senators Vandenberg and Harry F. Byrd for a long time. Mr. Baruch believed that Mr. Hoover had been out of public favor for so long that he was attempting to obtain it anew by a retreat toward isolationism.

There had been eyebrows raised regarding the voluntary dissolution recently of the Ku Klux Klan in Atlanta, in exchange for which several charges against the organization were dropped by State Attorney General Eugene Cook, charges originally drawn by former Assistant Attorney General Dan Duke under Governor Ellis Arnall. All charges had been dropped except violation of the charter as a benevolent order in that the Klan made substantial profits off dues. After the court proceedings, Mr. Cook and Grand Dragon Dr. Samuel Green warmly shook hands while Mr. Duke glowered from fifteen feet away. The charges dropped were civil rights violations, interference with the free movement of citizens, and espousing bigotry and race hatred.

The Klan, he notes, was free to reincorporate in Georgia on different terms.

I.T.&T. was busy pulling strings in Washington through its ace lobbyist Frank Page, son of the late Walter Hines Page of North Carolina, partner in Page, Doubleday and Ambassador to Great Britain under Woodrow Wilson, for the purpose of taking over the entire telephone system of Puerto Rico, formerly owned by the U.S. Government and I.T.&T. It would leave the Government only with the telegraph lines which operated at a loss.

Some Republicans were promoting General MacArthur for president on the theory that if a war with Russia were inevitable, then a strong military man was required.

President MacArthur would, based on subsequent events in Korea, surely have provoked such a war in 1949, and with that, the world would have been reduced to a cinder where all old soldiers fade away in silence, without a whimper.

Amid other bits and pieces, the column relates of the Wisconsin Republican convention taking a straw poll to find out who was the leading contender for the Republican nomination for president. Senator Taft and former Governor Harold Stassen believed that it was the work of Dewey forces, bent on getting the nomination wrapped up for the Governor prior to the fall.

Marquis Childs discusses the small businessman's concern that his future appeared bleak under the shadows of big business and big labor. The Committee for Economic Development had issued a detailed program of financial reform intended to aid small business in meeting the competition of big business. They were also preparing a suggested program of tax reform.

Small manufacturers worried of industry-wide collective bargaining setting industry-wide wages. Many such manufacturers, for instance in steel, made only marginal profits and some would be forced out of business by higher wages

A small manufacturer in the steel industry had informed Mr. Childs that the reason for the large basic corporation was not monopoly but rather the required large capitalization for any manufacturer in the metals industries. There were exceptions, as in aluminum, and he favored government control in such industries. Collective bargaining did, however, exacerbate those conditions.

The Taft-Hartley bill had a provision requiring, in large industries affecting the whole country, union members to consider the last offer of their employer, not the industry as a whole, when determining whether to accept a contract. Some believed it to be essentially a ban on industry-wide collective bargaining even if the express ban was removed from the House version of the bill.

He concludes by suggesting that there was doubt as to whether the evils attendant industry-wide bargaining could be addressed by legislation.

Samuel Grafton finds Herbert Hoover's plan for foreign relief thoughtful, conservative, and "terribly dangerous". The former President, the food administrator for Europe after World War I, favored not going too far with aid such that taxes would rise and physical assets, as grain, lumber, metals, and other raw materials, sent abroad forever. Unlimited exports, he warned, were inflationary and thus harmful not only domestically but across the world.

Mr. Grafton, while recognizing the validity of this warning, also wonders whether it was another way of saying that chaos was inevitable abroad and that the country thus should limit aid and let the world hang at some point. The safety thus advocated by Mr. Hoover was questionable, that of a "safe" U.S. in an unsafe world.

The greatest danger to civilization, according to Mr. Hoover, was not that the world would devolve into chaos but that the U.S. would. The question then arose as to how much aid was "safe" and enough. His plan for feeding the world called for a reduction in food exports by August 1.

He never once suggested solution of the world problem, but if such were not the goal, Mr. Grafton posits, the country was simply sending good money after bad in the foreign aid program. One sometimes had to give up a leg in sacrifice to the world, he counsels, even if two legs were undoubtedly better than one.

A letter writer expresses pride that Charlotte had come of age by approving the referendum to establish controlled sale of liquor in the county. He hopes that the ministers and Inez Flow, presumably referring to the WCTU, would continue their crusade only by seeking to help the drunk rather than through prohibition, delivering him only to the clutches of the bootlegger.

He thinks that the editorial of June 13, "The Choice Before the Voters", had been quite appropriate.

A letter thanks The News for its support of the liquor referendum and urges that the supporters of it now had the responsibility to assure its success by bringing about better conditions associated with alcohol consumption.

This notion, we take it, means drinking responsibly when you are drunk.

A letter from the pastor of Dilworth Baptist Church in Charlotte thanks The News for its position on liquor advertising, as set forth on June 16, affirming a commitment not to carry such advertising in the newspaper.

A letter thanks the newspaper for having the "'GUTS'" to support the liquor referendum.

A letter from Congressman Estes Kefauver thanks The News for its editorial of June 10, "Toward an Efficient Congress", and for the mention of his book, A Twentieth Century Congress.

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