Saturday, July 5, 1947

The Charlotte News

Saturday, July 5, 1947

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin had warned Russia not to provoke the West, and then, less than 24 hours later, sent, jointly with French Foreign Minister Georges Bidault, a note asking the Soviets to reconsider their decision not to participate in the Marshall Plan, expressing the hope that the decision was not final.

Several other European nations had accepted or expressed the likelihood of acceptance of the invitation of the British and French to attend a July 12 conference to discuss their needs for aid and Europe's own resources to reduce the aid to a minimum, to be submitted to the U.S. State Department under the Marshall Plan.

The Russians stated that they would not participate any further in border investigations outside Greece, conducted by the Balkans Subcommittee of the U.N. Security Council. The Subcommittee had reported to the Security Council that Yugoslavia, Albania, and Bulgaria had been aiding the guerrillas in northern Greece, a report denied by the three accused countries and criticized by Russia.

In Rome, the British High Command in Italy commuted to life imprisonment the death sentences previously imposed on Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, Col. Gen. Eberhard Von Mackensen, and Lt. Gen. Kurt Maeltzer. The latter two had been sentenced on November 30 and Kesselring on May 6. They were convicted for their roles in the massacre of 335 Italians at the Ardeatine caves in reprisal for killing 32 German police troops. No reason is provided for the commutations.

The British Admiralty reported that average losses of British merchant ships during the war were 41 vessels per month, compared to 95 during World War I. The average loss of tonnage per month, 215,000, was about the same as in the earlier war. The losses peaked in 1941, with 717 ships sunk. The convoy system had helped to reduce losses.

In Moscow, Izvestia criticized the British plan to partition India into the two independent states of Hindustan and Pakistan, finding it to be a method by which Britain would continue its economic and political position of dominance in India.

Winston Churchill was elected as the first Englishman to become a member of the Connecticut chapter of the Society of Cincinnati, composed of descendants of officers in the American Army during the Revolutionary War. Mr. Churchill's great-great-grandfather, Lt. Reuben Murray of Guilford, fought in Col. Charles Burrall's Connecticut Continental Regiment. He gladly accepted the membership.

The seven killed in Oslo, Minn., during the tornado which struck the Red River Valley the previous Thursday, cutting an 80-mile path from Manitoba through North Dakota and Minnesota, were Mexican migrant sugar beet workers from San Antonio, Tex. Some in the single house survived.

The Illinois Coal Operators, employing 40,000 miners, settled its contract dispute with UMW. It called for a 44.5 cents per hour increase in wages, as the contract with the Northern operators, representing 150,000 miners, already settled. The Southern and Western operators, employing about 100,000 miners each, had not yet approved the terms.

Evita Peron complained in Rome that she was suffering from the grippe and fatigue, after a tour of Spain and Italy. She had planned to go to England on July 15 but, for now, was headed to bed.

Former King Carol of Rumania was married to Mme. Elena Lupescu, his companion for 23 years. Mme. Lupescu was said to be ailing, as she had been periodically since the two fled Bucharest from the Nazis in September, 1940. She had reportedly been on a death list of the anti-Semitic Rumanian Iron Guard, as they fired on the train carrying the two into Yugoslavia at the time they fled into exile. They had made their way to Spain before being halted on order of Generalissimo Francisco Franco, acting on the request of Herr Hitler. They escaped to Portugal, then went to Cuba and Mexico. Their request for asylum in the U.S., had been denied. After remaining in Mexico for three years, they moved to Brazil, where they were still residing. Russia had urged King Carol to return to the throne. He planned to buy a ranch in Argentina.

He had met the "Titian-haired beauty" in 1924 and, though married, had fallen in love with her at first sight. He was then denounced by his father, King Ferdinand, in 1926, and barred from succession to the throne. He and Mme. Lupescu went into their first exile and then returned to Rumania in 1940 to assume the throne, after Ferdinand had died. She then became the object of anti-Semitic attacks, which labeled her a "red-haired witch" with "occult influence" on the King. With her personality, however, she won over many of her enemies.

Hamid Reza Pahlevi, 15-year old half-brother of the Shah of Iran, had been returned to the U.S. from his hooky flight to Paris, soon to be back at St. George's School in Newport, R.I. He had gone to Paris to see his brother.

Life is tough.

In Miami, a cab driver and war veteran was found shot to death early this date, with two bullet wounds to his head. His wallet was empty and a wrist watch was missing, though he had a $5 bill still in his shirt pocket.

In Concord, N.C., the editor of the Concord Tribune for 28 years, William Sherrill, died at age 53 of a heart attack. Mr. Sherrill had graduated from Duke in 1915. He had begun his newspaper career at age nine, working under his father who founded and published the Tribune.

Romeo, who had married Juliet, was in jail after beating her in Detroit. They had been separated for two years. At least they had not committed mutual suicide, and so were a step ahead of their Shakespearean counterparts.

In Vancouver, a canoe full of Capilano Indians shot arrows at the U.S.S. Iowa and then invited the crew to attend a lacrosse game.

HUAC will definitely want to look into this matter as a potential security breach, with a view toward prosecuting the Indians for perjury should they deny their intent to instigate war with the country.

Actress Joan Blondell and producer Michael Todd were married in Las Vegas this date in a surprise ceremony, shortly after reconciling from a recent spat. Ms. Blondell had formerly been married to actor-director Dick Powell.

Movie editor Emery Wister looks at North Carolina's Anne Jeffreys in his "Between Takes" column in the theater section of the newspaper.

Friend, do not read the following paragraphs if you are faint of heart and liable to collapse from disturbing, even earth-shattering, news. This story will come as a shock to those who erroneously cling to the notion that the attack on Earth came only through Roswell, N. M., in July, 1947. It was not so limited to a single pinpoint on the map. As already reported three days earlier, sightings of disk-like craft had been made in Bakersfield, California, and three locations in Oregon.

Now add Charleston, S.C., to the list of places under attack by the flying saucers. It was first spotted at 9:58 p.m. on Thursday, observed by three women, summer residents of Sullivan's Island. We wish to repeat that: Sullivan's Island. The women were sitting on their front porch at the time and, no doubt, were lucky to survive the encounter. The object, the size of a saucer, they said, had come from the northwest, remained in full view for five seconds, and disappeared to the southeast.

Moreover, hundreds of persons, states the Associated Press, had made such observations throughout the United States on July 4th, Independence Day. See the list of the states under attack, friend, read it and weep: Idaho, Oregon, Washington, California, Louisiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and, in Canada, Prince Edward Island. Initial reports, it says, were from Kenneth Arnold of Boise, Idaho, as he made observations in Washington State on June 25.

But that was two days after the observations by Mr. Rankin in Bakersfield. What gives? Is there a cover-up of his observations? Has he been abducted and taken away?

The numerous observers included the entire crew of a United Air Lines plane, eight minutes after taking off from Boise, observing the discs for twelve minutes.

Yeoman Frank Ryman of the Seattle Coast Guard took a photograph of one of the discs, but it appeared only as a pinpoint of light on the negative.

But add them up and there must have been at least a thousand pinpoints of light.

A Los Angeles pilot said that he and his companion were "scared silly" when they saw one of the saucers. He said the diameter of the thing appeared to be 40 to 50 feet.

Others described small objects.

As indicated, keep the faith. All is not lost, yet. For Hal Boyle will bring good news for the world, we are reliably informed, beginning next Tuesday.

Stay tuned.

On the editorial page, "The Liberals and the Veto" takes issue with the advisers of the President who had recommended his veto of Taft-Hartley on the political ground that to sign it would have been to alienate liberals and labor. While it would have alienated labor, liberals were not necessarily any longer in lockstep with the labor movement. Liberals had always been identified with it and its goals. But when labor had achieved its place as a force in society, it was not out of place for liberals to question some of labor's tactics, becoming after time quite as conservative as the National Association of Manufacturers, undertaking actions not in the public interest, as the series of strikes in 1946 which destroyed OPA by raising wages, exerting pressure thus to end price control.

Liberals would consider the whole record of the President and have their usual questions regarding the advice he was receiving. The veto of Taft-Hartley would not necessarily insure their support in 1948.

"Was the Andy May Case Unique?" questions whether former Kentucky Congressman Andrew May, just convicted of receiving bribes from the Garsson brothers to funnel war contracts to their combine of companies, was the only member of Congress, besides Senator Theodore Bilbo, to have committed graft during the war. It doubts that it was the case.

Comptroller General Lindsey Warren of North Carolina had stated that during the war, there were no checks on Government spending, that the attitude was to "get the goods, damn the cost".

The May case was, it suspects, only an example of succumbing to temptation in such an atmosphere.

"More Powerful Than the Bomb" discusses the fallacy stated by Christopher Norborg in his article in the July American Mercury, "The Failure of the United Nations". Mr. Norborg had worked for UNRRA and OSS during the war, was listed as a philosopher. He stated that the U.N. was serving only to protect Russia and its sphere of influence. The Russians could call on their "fellow democracies" in the West for help when attacked by another state, and then exercise their veto on the Security Council when they wanted to nullify or divide the power of the peace-loving states of the world.

The piece finds this conclusion, reducing the world's problem to fighting communism, to be remarkably facile. Mr. Norborg's solution was to scrap the Security Council and substitute a council of Western Powers to enforce U.N. policy, with or without the consent of Russia. He believed that it could be done without violation of the U.N. Charter—pursuant to Article 51, viz., "Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security."

Parenthetically, in so referencing this provision, does Mr. Norborg not indulge in a degree of intellectual deceit? The provision, to which the Soviets had assented at formation of the Charter, was obviously intended to provide for the transitory scenario in which a sudden attack occurs on a member state before the Security Council has the opportunity to authorize and undertake international police action to resist it, not the circumstances he contemplates, where the Security Council has been blocked by veto from taking action or, in the particular case, from even forming an international police force. The provision simply says that the individual state, or any collective of member states, has the right of self-defense, as always under the law of nations prior to the formation of the U.N. No one was arguing the contrary. But the question arises as to what constitutes an "armed attack". At this juncture in time, the Soviets had not engaged in any such "armed attack" but were burrowing from within, by propaganda techniques and maneuvering to obtain control of Eastern European governments through ostensibly legitimate electoral processes. The aid to Greece was designed to ward off continued threat by the northern guerrillas, being aided, according to the Balkans Subcommittee of the Security Council, by the Communist Governments of Yugoslavia, Albania, and Bulgaria. But that is not the situation to which he applies his solution, mentioning Greece, in the context of an hypothetical direct Soviet attack, only on one occasion in his article. Mr. Norborg's argument, premised on Article 51, thus necessarily fails to provide justification for "self-defense" as against the Soviets.

Too, as recently pointed out by Drew Pearson, the veto had been exercised by the Soviets only once thus far in 1947, compared to ten times during 1946. Thus, the problem to which Mr. Norborg addresses his solution appears at the time to have rectified itself by means of informal negotiation within the body.

The plan, continues the editorial, would destroy the U.N. and eliminate Russia from it. Mr. Norborg did not consider the successes of the U.N. in two years, as in the case of the Azerbaijan situation in March, 1946, or that the chief defect in the U.N. was the failure of the West to use it more, rather than undertaking unilateral action as in the President's Greek-Turkish aid plan, the initial basis for the so-called Truman Doctrine, an extension of the Monroe Doctrine, to include Europe in the nations aided to resist aggression.

Russia, the editorial concludes, had lost face with its tactics in the Security Council, and the U.N. had become the most effective weapon against Soviet totalitarianism.

Drew Pearson tells of Undersecretary of State for Economics Will Clayton intending to resign for health reasons. His resignation would leave the controversial William Benton as the most experienced senior level State Department secretary, with less than two years experience. There were, indeed, few remaining persons who had served under Secretary of State Byrnes, who had resigned in January. The rapid turnover of personnel should be of concern to the country, he suggests, and would be considered scandalous if it occurred in the War Department or the Navy Department. He urges Mr. Clayton, despite his departure during the Thirties from the New Deal, ultimately contributing money in 1936 to defeat FDR, to remain to lend continuity and experience at State.

He next tells of General Harry Vaughan, the President's chief military aide, heckling adviser Clark Clifford for his braggadocio rendition of his speech-writing capabilities in a recent national magazine article. Mr. Clifford had said that he could turn out a speech in twenty minutes. General Vaughan claimed that he had told the President that it took him all day and all night to write one. General Vaughan wondered where Mr. Clifford would be if the President suddenly needed a speech on twenty minutes notice.

Congressman William J. Miller of Connecticut had introduced a bill to hamstring the Federal Power Commission—as extensively discussed the previous Wednesday by Marquis Childs. It would restore the utilities to the halcyon days of the Coolidge-Hoover Administrations. The bill appeared to be the result of heavy lobbying by the utility interests along with the railroads. It would prevent the FPC from regulating power companies not engaging in interstate commerce through sale of power and would allow companies to deliver power across state lines on a wholesale basis, without Federal control. The bill would effectively set aside an earlier Supreme Court decision during the Hoover years that the FPC, created during the Hoover Administration, had authority to regulate power generated on navigable streams, falling within the ambit of interstate commerce.

Senator Taft had recently inquired of V.A. Administrator General Omar Bradley how he squared his advocacy for additional veterans benefits under a proposed bill with the President's statement that no new benefits were necessary. Before he could answer, Senator Wayne Morse stated that he would be willing to risk a veto on the bill.

Samuel Grafton discusses the increasing hopelessness for world cooperation in the face of Soviet refusal to agree on both the international police force and the Marshall Plan. It was the continuing theme of the time, "treated with gorgeous complexity, with many riffs, hot licks and embroidery".

While he recognizes the possibility of sympathy with Russian suspicions of the majority countries of the West and the Russian concern over protecting their minority interests, the result was that there was no international police force and the organization of global aid would necessarily be limited without Russian support.

The Russians wanted equal contributions to the police force by each of the Big Five nations, the permanent members of the Security Council. But China had no navy. The French lacked planes. And the Russians had limited numbers of cruisers. The Russian fear was that the international navy would be dominated by the United States and its carrier force, the air force, by the British and Americans. The U.S. plan was to have comparable contributions based on the abilities of each nation to contribute.

The Russian fear of the Marshall Plan took the form of concern that American aid would provide America control over Europe.

The result was a mutual standoff, consistent with the apparent best hope of the Russians. If the West became convinced also that such was the best which could be achieved, then the liberals in the West who hoped for world peace would lose their ardor.

Marquis Childs discusses the extensive flood damage in the Mississippi Valley region, sweeping away an estimated 107 million dollars worth of topsoil in Iowa alone. Meanwhile, the House had cut the budget for the Soil Conservation Service from 48 million dollars to 40 million and arbitrarily cut the allocation for research by more than half. There appeared no movement in the Senate to restore these crucial dollars.

The Mississippi Valley was faced with the prospect of soil erosion on the order of that in the South two decades earlier, threatening dustbowl conditions.

The Soil Conservation Service estimated that 500,000 acres of topsoil were being lost annually at a cost in farming of a billion dollars.

Contour plowing, terracing, and other soil conservation techniques held the water in the soil and prevented runoff to the rivers and consequent flooding.

In contrast, the Tennessee Valley had suffered no flooding in the heavy rains of 1945 and 1946, thanks to TVA and its series of dams.

A letter writer appears to dislike Taft-Hartley but also finds that labor had been allowed to run hog wild under the Wagner Act and so was resisting being corralled by the new legislation.

A letter from A. W. Black finds the Communists, Socialists, and other enemies of capitalism coming up short in their effort to defeat free enterprise in the country. He believes the profit motive would always rule the day and that free competition would triumph over "dictatorial collectivism".

We are starting to miss Inez Flow and her diatribes against alcohol, compared to the consistent ravings of this lunatic, albeit mild in this particular installment of his new twice weekly column in The News.

Framed Edition
[Return to Links
Page by Subject] [Return to Links-Page by Date] [Return to News<i><i><i>--</i></i></i>Framed Edition]
Links-Date -- Links-Subj.