Friday, September 5, 1947

The Charlotte News

Friday, September 5, 1947

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Secretary of State Marshall and Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan, speaking on radio, hailed the new pact among Western Hemispheric nations formed at the conference in Rio De Janeiro as a milestone in the effort to preserve world peace. Secretary Marshall called the agreement "sunlight in a dark world", good for the U.N. as an example of cooperation. Senator Vandenberg termed the pact as creating an "all for one and one for all" unity among American states.

The treaty allowed for self-defense to be employed by the 19 signatory nations in concert against any aggression against a signatory nation of the Western Hemisphere, regardless of whether arising from within the "security zone" thus established or from without it, that extending from pole to pole and Greenland to Alaska. The agreement applied to conditions under which the U.N. had not yet had the opportunity to act in a given situation.

The treaty would be prelude to the formation of the Organization of American States, formed the following April.

President Truman again spoke in Rio de Janeiro, addressing the Brazilian Congress, giving praise to the Inter-American Conference and resulting treaty.

Senator Vandenberg stated that it was up to President Truman whether a special session of Congress would be necessary to deal with the problems of Europe and the necessity for emergency aid. Senator Carl Hatch of New Mexico favored reconvening at the earliest possible date. Representative Adolph Sabath of Illinois suggested that Britain obtain gold by selling its "gilt-edged securities" held in the United States and selling off interests they had in the German cartel industries.

It was predicted by politicians in Athens, Greece, that 86-year old Liberal Party leader Themistokles Sophoulis would form a broadened Greek Government with the Royal Party, headed by Premier Constantin Tsaldaris. The parties had engaged in an ongoing feud for 37 years. The Liberal Party was expected to be in charge of public order and the Ministry of Justice in the new coalition. The Royalists would likely have control of the Ministry of War. The move was in accord with U.S. counsel. The Royalists had been unable to gather coalition support otherwise within the Parliament.

Guerrilla fighting in the north of Greece continued, with Government troops claiming two decisive victories during the previous 24 hours, in which 70 and 100 rebels were killed in the respective engagements.

On Guam, an American military tribunal sentenced convicted Captain Hiroshi Iwanami, medical officer, to death by hanging for his murder of ten American prisoners of war on Truk in 1944. He had killed the men during various "medical experiments", which included decapitations. Lt. Shinji Sakagami was sentenced to life in prison for strangling to death two prisoners. Eighteen of Captain Iwanami's subordinates were also sentenced to prison terms, ranging between ten years and life.

In Cleveland, at the convention of the V.F.W., the commander of the U.S. Air Defense Command, Lt. General George E. Stratemeyer, called for a standing Air Force of 10,000 modern aircraft and 400,000 personnel, necessary, he said, to assure lasting peace. He also urged a strong Air National Guard and Air Reserve "to augment our regular striking force."

Secretary of Defense James Forrestal warned, before the same convention the previous night, of totalitarian governments comprised of "groups of ruthless and ambitious men" seeking to place an "iron fist" on smaller nations. He did not name any particular country.

We are left to conclude that he was likely referring to Spain.

In Tokyo, the chief of the Indian trade mission in Japan charged that American interests were seeking to dominate the Japanese cotton market, a charge denied by Allied Headquarters. He said that American interests wanted textiles exported from Japan at a fixed price so that other prices would not fall, and sought to restrict the importation of Indian cotton for the benefit of American cotton.

In New York, eggs were poised to go to one dollar per dozen, meat and butter, already at 87 cents, to a dollar a pound, unless there was "consumer resistance". Corn and oats were trading at their highest ever prices in Chicago, impacted by the drought in the Midwest. A record September price of $35 per hundred-weight for cattle had been paid in Chicago within the previous week.

In Pittsburgh, 1,800 employees of a railroad operated by U.S. Steel struck, following a break in contract negotiations with two unions, the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, representing the workers. In consequence, production of steel was curtailed, as 101 of 106 hearths served by the railroad were shut down. There had been no notices of strike and the National Mediation Board labeled it thus "wildcat".

In Washington, the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks, led by George Harrison, announced that the Railway Express Agency had agreed to wage hikes of 15.5 cents per hour for 65,000 employees, raising average wages to $1.31 per hour. It was the same wage boost on which agreement was achieved earlier in the week with non-operating personnel.

In Shelby, the Highway Patrolman who had shot and killed the Cherryville Police Chief following a stop by the Patrolman of the Chief for suspected drunk driving in Kings Mountain on August 19, was bound over to the Grand Jury after a Recorder's Court found probable cause on a second degree murder warrant sworn by the Chief's daughter. A neutral witness stated that he had seen the nighttime shooting from the porch of his home and that the Chief was standing in the middle of the road with his arms at his sides when the Patrolman shot him five times. The witness said also that the Chief stated that he would put away his knife if the Patrolman were to put away his blackjack. But the Patrolman had continued to try to knock out the Chief with the blackjack—his right under the law of arrest with probable cause, as he appeared to have.

At that point, according to the witness, the Chief had stabbed the Patrolman, making a deep gash in the Patrolman's arm, at which point the Patrolman fired—also plainly the right of the Patrolman under the law of self-defense if he reasonably feared for his life, giving rise to the use of deadly force to resist deadly force.

The daughter, under questioning by her attorneys, Sam J. Ervin and Frank Patton of Morganton, largely corroborated the testimony of the witness, though admitting again that she had tried to get her father "to cooperate" with the Patrolman when he refused to get into the patrol car. Now, she contended that her father was not drunk at all, that she had been with him most of the evening hours. The Chief had been quoted at the coroner's hearing, which determined the Patrolman to have acted in self-defense, as saying that he would as soon be dead as be taken into custody by the Patrolman. The daughter claimed that her father did not strike the first blow—irrelevant if the officer was trying to effect a lawful arrest and was being resisted with enough force that force had reasonably to be used to effect the arrest and counter any resistance thereto.

The Recorder's Court was wrong on this one and the coroner's jury correct. There is no room for reasonable minds to differ on whether the officer used reasonable force under the agreed circumstances, and it is irrelevant whether he was the initial aggressor if he was being resisted in a lawful arrest. No one apparently had questioned the probable cause for the arrest, as the daughter admitted that her father was zig-zagging down the road.

Burke Davis, in the first of a series of reports on the commitment and care of the mentally ill, focusing on Mecklenburg County, tells of the insane being placed in jails with common criminals across the state and that state law permitted and even encouraged the practice, even if the afflicted suffered from only temporary insanity.

Psychiatrists counseled against the practice as harmful to most individuals. But the state still was unable to work out a method of direct commitment.

Of every 22 Americans in 1947, one would seek medical or hospital care for mental illness.

A hundred and fifty Mecklenburg citizens were in mental hospitals within the state and many had spent time in jail before being admitted. He relates examples.

In Winston-Salem, unnamed officials stated that the wheels of industry in the Twin City might be brought to a halt unless the water shortage were soon alleviated. Despite emergency conservation measures, the water supply continued to dwindle. An emergency line had been run from a creek to provide a million gallons per day. But the city of 100,000 was still consuming eleven million gallons of water every 24 hours. Conservation had cut consumption by only about a million gallons. Salem Lake was now 116 inches below the crest of its dam. The Public Works Commissioner warned that the city would be without water within 50 days unless there were heavy rains.

Pray for rain.

Still no word from the Compleat Report, however, as to what had caused the drought in the first place. Still guessing that it might have been the result of the landing at Roswell, perhaps supplemented by the landing in Hollister on July 4, causing cracks in the earth, swallowing all the water in Winston-Salem because of its peculiar situation, harboring both central hosiery and tobacco operations. For when you have both under your control, the Roswellians and Hollisterians probably concluded, you have the world at your command. Without underwear or cigarettes, man has only limited capabilities.

About 2,000 people had attended the three-day Carolinas Poultry Exposition at Columbia, S.C. It had concluded the previous day. So if you missed the chicken expose, you are out of luck now. We are sorry you missed it. It was the best one yet. You should've been there. They had all kinds.

On the editorial page, "The Costs of Two Worlds Grow" tells of the dual shocks from Europe, the determination of the 16 nations meeting in Paris that they would need 29 billion dollars during the ensuing four years under the Marshall Plan and the advice by Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin that America should spread its gold over the world to revitalize world trade.

While in the end, neither might become a reality, the Marshall Plan was going to be expensive and was necessary to preserve capitalism and democracy in the world, to defeat the deepening divide between the West and Eastern Europe, where Soviet expansion continued to occur.

Unless the Marshall Plan were undertaken promptly, the shift in power to the Soviets would likely continue in Europe.

"A Forward Step in Teaching" discusses a piece in The New York Times Magazine of August 17 on the president of Rollins College, Dr. Hamilton Holt, on the occasion of his 75th birthday. Dr. Holt had been the liberal editor of The Independent magazine before becoming president of Rollins in 1925. A graduate of Yale, Dr. Holt nevertheless had no sympathy with stodgy teaching methods, had initiated less formal instruction than that under which he was taught, eliminating most lectures, recitations and examinations, substituting a discussion format, giving the students more responsibility. He expected the students to think through the problems presented and not just regurgitate answers.

While viewed skeptically at first by educators, the success of the program was being emulated by many other colleges.

The piece suggests that Dr. Holt had humanized education and placed a higher premium on the gifted educator than on the scientific researcher. It recommends the system for study by other educators.

"MacArthur's Revival in Japan" tells of General MacArthur having stated on September 2, the second anniversary of the formal surrender of Japan, that the Japanese had recovered 46 percent of their pre-war industrial production and that it represented a positive record in support of a peace treaty which would enable the Japanese to stand on their own economic feet. In other words, suggests the piece, he favored restoration of Japan's industrial power.

The piece does not doubt that the Japanese would make good use of such an opportunity, perhaps to the point of returning to its position pre-war in which Japan was challenging America for world trade in such areas as textiles.

But despite General MacArthur's program to eradicate from the Japanese the tradition of militarism and imperialism, it was doubtful that such longstanding ideals, spanning centuries, had been erased in such a short time, especially given what had been learned during the war.

It posits that behind the General's words was the policy to build Japan as a bulwark against Soviet expansion in the Far East.

It appeared true that the Japanese were making a start toward democracy, but power politics should not blind the nation to the realities of the time it would take for such transition to be complete, counterbalanced by the danger of revival of the old militarism.

A piece from the Atlanta Journal, titled "New Frontiers", tells of the movement West in the old days, developing new farms, mines, and forests. But now the physical frontiers were old and full of development.

Yet, the new frontiers were still abounding in the field of science, where frontiers were as broad as ingenuity would allow, provided world trade was maintained in an increasingly free pattern.

Capital was needed to rehabilitate Europe, and yet more for Asia. Most of South America needed a Marshall Plan as well.

Both Canada and Australia were encouraging immigration to increase their production.

A new era of expansion was in the making, provided that free trade remained open. It was the best remedy for the erosion of capitalism occurring from the extremes of the business cycle.

Drew Pearson, returning from a three-week vacation, the longest since he started the column, thanks former Washington Merry-Go-Round partner Robert Allen for filling in for him, also discusses "new frontiers". He relates that he spent his vacation filling his silo, with the exception that he visited Virginia to explore some history at the Washington and Lee boyhood homes and in Williamsburg, where he attended Paul Green's The Common Glory, performed by University of Virginia students. He wondered as he watched what might happen to some of the Founding Fathers had they been alive in 1947. He asks whether they might not be censored by the Rankin Committee on Un-American Activities.

The Founders, he says, were rebellious radicals, determined to establish a new order. Thomas Jefferson had demanded immediate freedom for the slaves and proclaimed the notion that all men were created free and equal, a radical idea of the day.

Jefferson and Washington had been quite wealthy, among the largest landowners in Virginia, by the time of the Revolution. They were impelled, along with the rest of the Founders and fellow Revolutionaries, by a cause, to develop a new country in which new freedom could thrive amid tolerance.

He contrasts that birth of freedom with the present in which America had become so powerful in the world as to be feared. Along with power came complacency and conservatism, resting on laurels. It was the reason that empires rose and fell. Such countries became cynical about causes. The tendency was to be against things rather than for creating new things. The motto resembled that displayed in Pullman cars after 10:00 p.m.: "Quiet is requested for the benefit of those who have retired."

The country had to continue to be just as liberal and vigorous as the Founders in maintaining and furthering the foundations of the country. But the country had allowed the forests to be stripped and exploited, topsoil to run into the ocean, iron ore turned to shot and shell on the battlefields of Europe, and petroleum removed to the point that little reserve remained for subsequent generations.

He suggests that to fight Communism did not require so many resolutions, as passed the previous week by the American Legion, but rather a "new Jeffersonian declaration of American idealism" to demonstrate that the country was building something better than Communism.

He believes that if the Founders were alive, they would point to the schools and the underpaid teachers, would urge more charity, education, and tolerance between labor and management. They would counsel more religious tolerance and to forget the poison infecting many Americans from Hitler's doctrines. They would urge building of flood control and electric power projects as a means to conserve resources.

Above all, they would tell the nation "to move forward fervently to new frontiers as they did, in a never-ending demonstration of the fact that democracy works."

Stewart Alsop tells of the upcoming October 1 report from the Council of Economic Advisers warning of storms ahead, in contrast to the previous cautiously optimistic reports of the previous year. The danger signals pointed to a full-scale depression as in 1932, brought on by a vicious circle built on fear of depression, which could only be broken by reimposition of price controls.

The Advisers pointed to the steel industry as the best example. Though the chief of the finance committee of U. S. Steel agreed with the Advisers that steel could absorb the most recent wage hikes without raising prices, it would be dependent on maintaining 90 percent of current production levels, and the prospectus had to rely on no more than 50 percent production in setting prices. Translated, it meant that steel had to rely on depression-type conditions in setting prices, thus creating the circle.

The chief economist for G.M. had responded in kind to pleas to hold down prices.

There was nothing wrong with high profits, as enjoyed by steel and other sectors of large industry in the post-war period, provided they were funneled back into industrial expansion and not allowed to sit as idle capital, depriving the economy of purchasing power and creating the conditions for depression in girding for it.

Mr. Alsop points out that the American political and economic system could not withstand another severe depression. Thus, the capitalists, in preparing for such, were effectively bringing on the destruction of the very system under which they thrived.

Samuel Grafton tells of "Harry" cashing in his terminal leave bond, receiving $209, and heading home, thinking of the $9, which he had stuck into his side pocket rather than, as the remainder of the proceeds, into his wallet. It was equal to the amount he would have received for the weekend leave he had to forgo while in Paris, which, in consequence, he was only able to see passingly. No Cafe de Flore, where he might have hung out and watched for the existentialists.

As he got home, he paid his $60 in rent, to which the girl at the desk added $9, reminding him that it represented the 15 percent increase to which he had agreed under the lease extending through 1948, per the new law passed by Congress allowing same. Harry then told her that he hoped that the landlord enjoyed his weekend in Paris. "Merci beaucoup. Le jour de gloire est arrive."

The girl primly said that she was sure that she did not know what he meant, and pushed the receipt toward him with the rubber tip of her pencil.

A letter writer suggests that the present economic ills of Europe were the result of a lack of production and that was because of the limits placed on it by the occupying powers. He thinks it may be that the Truman Administration was placing the country in a trap in Europe and that the Republicans were the stabilizing force to insure against a WPA in Europe.

That all makes a lot of sense. Did you ever hear of the war in Europe which destroyed the entire infrastructure of all of the countries? Or did that slip by you somewhere?

Just crank back up the factories and let 'em rip. There was no carpet bombing at all by the Allies. Everything still stood straight and strong, and that is why Hitler shot himself on April 30, 1945.

A letter writer complains of a defendant receiving only six months on the chain gang for shooting at a police officer to avoid arrest. He wants stiffer penalties for such crimes.

Hang 'em. Death to all.

Another letter from the woman who wants stiff penalties for all the draft dodgers and profiteers during the war, tells of a man asking her why the Government should do anything to them as everybody knew what they were. But she was still of the opinion that something ought be done with them, that they ought be kept in jail or something.

Hang 'em. Hang every one of 'em. Find the highest tree in Charlotte.

For the ensuing two weeks, Herblock was apparently on vacation, and in his stead would appear the frames of Vaughn Shoemaker of the Chicago Daily News, who won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartoons in 1947 for the below frame, captioned "Still Racing His Own Shadow". Four times during the period, The News would substitute the labor column of Victor Riesel, the first of which had appeared the previous day. Mr. Block would return September 20.

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