The Charlotte News
Monday, August 4, 1947
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that, pursuant to the directive of the U.N. Security Council to cease fighting, the Dutch forces and Indonesians had complied, giving the U.N. its first major victory for peace. The fighting had lasted 15 days. The Indonesians declared that, given the actions by the Dutch in seizing two tin-rich islands, formerly considered part of Indonesia, they were no longer bound by the Cherebon Agreement whereby Indonesia would be made independent in 1949, but still subject to the Dutch crown.
A U.N. resolution submitted by Russia to bar enemy state applications for membership to the U.N. until after treaties with the nations were ratified, was voted down 6 to 4, while the Security Council agreed that membership would not become effective until the treaties were concluded.
According to General Lucius Clay, commander of the American occupation forces in Germany, Germans roving the countryside in search of food had, during the latter two weeks of July, fought seven gun battles with the German police assigned to guard crops in the American zone. Considerable absenteeism had also been noted in German industry. German war prisoners returning from Russia to the American zone were in such poor health that they could not be put to work and some might not recover.
Elliott Roosevelt
The chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Homer Ferguson of Michigan, stated, in response to Democratic complaints for focusing unduly on Hughes and the late President's son, that the subcommittee would investigate other airlines as well. Senator Claude Pepper of Florida wanted to look at the war contracts of General Motors and the major steel companies.
Howard Hughes was heading to Washington to testify on Wednesday.
We hope the chick farmers succeed, whatever else happens.
A UAW official stated that the union had a new proposal for Ford that he hoped would avert a strike of 107,000 workers set for noon the following day. Ford continued to object to exempting the union from penalty provisions under Taft-Hartley for unauthorized strikes. Ford denied that a minor dispute over a pension plan was a major roadblock in the negotiations.
Winston Churchill stated that the Conservative Party would back efforts to obtain easement of conditions to obtain new credits on the U.S. loan.
Premier Josef Stalin reviewed several jet planes during Soviet Aviation Day. Only one jet had flown the previous year.
Eva Peron, wife of dictator Juan Peron of Argentina, arrived in Geneva.
In Shanghai, Chinese military police announced the arrest of a dozen kidnappers of a wealthy Chinese couple, for whom ransom was demanded in the form of 22.5 tons of the best quality rice and twelve carbines. The couple had not yet been located.
In Lillington, N.C., the trial of the tenant farmer accused of murdering his wife continued with an analysis of the handwriting of the alleged suicide note found by the defendant's sister seven months after his first conviction and sentence of death, overturned because of the newly discovered evidence. An expert testified that the samples of the wife's handwriting he had reviewed matched the handwriting of the suicide note. He said the note was written hurriedly while under stress. A State Bureau of Investigation expert corroborated his testimony. The prosecution promised to proffer an FBI expert and Treasury Department witness who would testify to the contrary.
Three black men were put to death in the Florida electric chair, each for raping a white woman.
In Jackson, N.C., the County Solicitor asked the Grand Jury to indict seven white men in the attempted lynching of Buddy Bush on May 23, from which he managed to escape as they took him from the jail to an awaiting car. He was charged with attempted rape. The Solicitor sought indictments of the men on charges of kidnaping, breaking and entering a jail with intent to injure or kill Mr. Bush and conspiracy to commit same.
The proceedings were paused to honor General Matt W. Ransom, former U.S. Senator and Confederate hero of the Civil War, who had died in Northampton county in 1904. A portrait in his honor was hung, or at least it was so attempted. Senator Umstead was present to speak at the ceremony.
In Livorno, Italy, a group of men, complaining that women of the town were too brazen, stripped the women and paraded them through the streets until military police were able to stop the conduct.
Along the Gulf Coast of Florida, a mysterious plague was killing fish, moving up the coast at the rate of five miles per day. The mass of dead fish was estimated to be 60 miles long and 25 miles wide, giving the appearance of logs upon which one could walk across the water.
In Verona, N.J., a woman phoned in a report to the firehouse of a fire in the firehouse, across the street from her home. The firemen then found that, indeed, the station was ablaze, caused by a defective electric clock.
In Santa Barbara, actor Herbert Marshall was wed, finally, to actress Boots Mallory. The best man was actor Nigel Bruce.
Even if you never have heard of anyone save the best man, the couple sure had a good publicity agent.
On the editorial page, "Truman and Boss Tom's Ghost" tells of the hope of the Republicans still to make a 1948 campaign issue of the vote fraud case out of Kansas City in the previous summer's primary in which the President's hand-picked candidate Enos Axtell had defeated incumbent Congressman Roger Slaughter, with the aid of the James Pendergast machine. The Democrats had, in the closing days of the session, successfully filibustered the resolution to have an investigation conducted by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
But in so doing, the Democrats had offended many observers. For instance, the Richmond Times-Dispatch editorialized that the matter would likely plague President Truman in 1948, with the "ghost of 'Boss' Pendergast" becoming "a very lively corpse".
The editorial, however, had based its opinion on the belief that the President had put the Pendergast machine "back on its feet", when in fact the machine was staging a comeback until the problems arose out of the Axtell-Slaughter election. The Pendergast machine had originally been supporting Mr. Slaughter, along with the Kansas City Star, the "'reform'" newspaper which had helped to overthrow Boss Pendergast in 1939-40. Mr. Slaughter was a machine politician himself, in the Shannon faction, which was also supporting him in the 1946 election.
The President split these coalesced factions when he asked James Pendergast to intervene. The Republicans had won the Congressional election in November as a result of the squabbling.
Another view of the matter had been provided by the Raleigh News & Observer, which editorialized that the Republican demand for investigation had been merely a political effort to smear President Truman. But the better approach politically for the Democrats would have been to allow the investigation to proceed. The piece agrees, but asserts that the smear attempt had not yet failed, as the N & O believed. There were already "disturbing indications of [the Republicans'] ability to spread confusion and suspicion."
It should be noted that new Editor William Reddig had worked for the Kansas City Star for 19 years before taking the post at The News a week earlier, and previously during the year had published a well-received book on the Pendergast machine, Tom's Town.
"The Egg and the Bright New World" finds hope in a report from Automobile Facts, published by the Automobile Manufacturers Association, that the chicken had learned over the course of 25 generations since the advent of the automobile to avoid crossing the road in front of the murderous wheels. So found Modern Bird Study, by ornithologist Ludlow Griscom. He determined that the I.Q. of the chicken was relatively high.
The piece thinks it a positive sign for humanity, that Senator Taft might yet renounce his return to isolationism and the world might find a peaceful path to travel.
The chicken, it suggests, was a peaceful bird which followed set routines and served mankind. The fact that it took 25 generations to accord its self-preservation from the automobile was merely the result of it having placed faith in humanity to look after the chicken's welfare.
That this piece should appear shortly after the testimony of the publicity agent of Howard Hughes, anent Chick Farmer and the unwanted photographs of Elliott Roosevelt at the New York nightclub, undoubtedly, for $50, having to do with something completely beyond the pale and of which we would not deign to imagine, is certainly a remarkable coincidence.
"Mr. Fritz and His Molehill" tells of the president of the North Carolina Education Association being investigated by the State Board of Education regarding a complaint that he mishandled $1,300 in school funds at the Hudson school of which he was principal. The investigation began after he endorsed personally Charles Johnson for the gubernatorial nomination and after he had won the NCEA presidency over the traditional heir to the position, the first vice-president.
While politics may have motivated the picayune complaint, he would likely receive a full and fair hearing before the Board. But the matter should serve as a warning to those who ventured into the political arena in the state that the spotlight would shift upon them and any minor fault would be magnified. It also served to remind school officials that they needed to run their schools in accord with strict accounting principles.
A piece by Tom Lynch of The News reaches back 50 years to tell of the prices extant at the time in Charlotte, $15 per month for a seven-room house, a suit of clothes or "barrel" of seven-year old whiskey for $3, depending on which one you wanted. The "barrel", he explains, was actually only a gallon. Westerners had to buy a minimum of five barrels to obtain shipment.
Men's shirts were 48 cents apiece at Belks. Another store sold women's gowns, corset covers, chemises, pants, and skirts for a quarter each. Walking skirts were $2.75.
A nine-room house sold for $1,300. Rent on a four-room house was $7 per month. Lots sold for a $100 each on average.
It was hard, he concludes, to get used to a dollar not being a dollar anymore.
Drew Pearson tells of Pan Am and its president, Juan Trippe, trying again to get the "one-company" rule passed by Congress to enable monopolies by certain American airlines on particular overseas routes. He had tried and failed two years earlier but was now making another attempt in the Republican Congress. In a house on F Street in Washington, he had wined and dined members of the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee. Shortly afterward, members had introduced bills to establish the "one-company" rule. It was generally understood that the bills had been drafted by the attorney for Pan Am.
He notes that two of the Congressmen had asked for free overseas transportation on Pan Am to study the "one-company" idea. The C.A.B. had turned them down.
Senator Owen Brewster of Maine, leading the War Investigating Committee investigation into the war contract of Howard Hughes, had introduced a "one-company" bill in the Senate. Senator Brewster had once flown via Pan Am to Raleigh to try to persuade the late Senator Josiah W. Bailey to vote for the "one-company" plan. Senator Bailey had refused.
Senator Brewster had arranged to have the former vice-president of Pan Am become the adviser for the Interstate Commerce Committee. Senator Brewster previously had received a $10,000 retainer from Pan Am while teaching law at Princeton.
Despite there being a Pan Am vice-president on the CAB, it had been heavily critical of Pan Am's monopolistic practices in Latin American routes, enabling the airline to make 60 percent profit, six million dollars, during the previous 12 years. Pan Am was attempting to have the monopoly reinstated through the "one-company" rule.
Paul W. Ward, substituting for vacationing Samuel Grafton, provides the first in a series of articles collectively titled "Life in the Soviet Union", originally printed in the Baltimore Sun. In the first installment, he examines the efforts of Soviet citizens to emigrate from Russia to the United States. The persons in question claimed either to have been born in the U.S. or had previously emigrated and become naturalized, but returned to Russia during the Twenties when Communist propaganda and longing for their homeland had lured them back. Some returned because of the U.S. Depression.
Few would succeed in their efforts to re-enter the U.S., having surrendered their passports to the Russian authorities upon their return. Most would not likely be able to prove their citizenship in the U.S. They were from all parts of the U.S.S.R., including the Baltic States.
Most were farmers who had found life too hard in the U.S., but harder in Russia. For 250 days per year of work in Russia, they received daily 4.5 pounds of grain, 9 pounds of potatoes, 6.5 pounds of other vegetables, 2 pounds of hay, and 1 to 4 cents in cash.
Industrial workers received no more and were required to join company unions, the primary function of which was to raise production and cut costs. They had to live in company houses and shop at company stores. Goods were bought with heavy sales taxes attached. If they lost their job, they also lost their housing. A worker who took a day off or was late to work was subject to criminal prosecution and imprisonment.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop tell of a group of nineteen members of Congress, led by Representative Christian Herter of Massachusetts, heading for Europe to examine the quality of life. The group was intended to correct the erosion of influence of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in the Republican Congress, to try to sway members of the House through a committee not deemed corrupted by influence, as it was believed the Foreign Affairs Committee had become, no longer isolationist in stance.
Speaker Joe Martin had appointed the "Committee of Nineteen", each of whom was supposed to be without taint and collectively representative of a cross-section of the House. The membership ranged from isolationist to progressive.
The members would be briefed by experts before and during the voyage. The whole committee would visit the Ruhr and then parts of the committee would visit the rest of Germany, Austria, England, France, the Low Countries, Italy, and Greece. The embassies in each country had been alerted and urged to show the committee the unvarnished face of Europe. After the tour, a shipboard meeting would take place on the way home to draft a report.
A letter writer finds fault with UMW having been able to negotiate its way around the penalty provision of Taft-Hartley for an unauthorized strike. UAW was trying to obtain the same exemption from Ford. He thinks the country ought abandon European relief long enough to help America.
We note that fifty years ago this date, seventeen years hence from this date in 1947, the second of the two Gulf of Tonkin Incidents took place, the first having occurred on August 2, 1964, involving a torpedo attack on the U.S.S. Maddox while on patrol in what was initially claimed to be international waters. The second incident, stated at the time to be another attack on the Maddox and the U.S.S. C. Turner Joy, was determined subsequently likely to be the result of faulty sonar readings. The incidents led to passage by Congress on August 7 of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, beginning American offensive military involvement in Vietnam by authorizing the President to undertake all necessary measures to repel offensive attacks on American armed forces and "to prevent further aggression", as well as to aid any member of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty which requested assistance. At the time, the nation and the Congress overwhelmingly supported the action.
Trying to lay blame for the Vietnam War on President Johnson or, even more problematically, on Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, is a fool's game of simple denial. It was, as Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, then floor leader for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, would later describe it, the result of the "arrogance of power" by a nation of people, not that different from that same nation today. Witness the aftermath of September 11, 2001.
The attack on the Maddox, incidentally, occurred 21 years to the day after the PT-109 incident in the Solomon Islands, in turn occurring twenty years after the death of President Warren G. Harding in San Francisco at the Palace Hotel.
Framed Edition
Links-Date -- Links-Subj.