The Charlotte News

Tuesday, September 9, 1947

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the sixteen European nations meeting in Paris to determine their needs under the Marshall Plan stated that they would need, over the course of four years, 21.9 billion dollars in aid, a substantial reduction from the originally reported 29 billion. The total needs encompassed 32.7 billion dollars worth of aid, of which 6.2 billion, the nations determined, could be supplied by overseas territories of the nations, and 4.6 billion from sale of exports by the nations, themselves, in return for which they would receive dollars with which to purchase food and necessary supplies, including agricultural equipment and seeds. The report came out of the Food and Agriculture sub-committee of the Committee for Economic Cooperation. Four other subcommittees, on steel, timber, energy, and transportation, had submitted reports with totals which were estimated to be less than that of the Food and Agriculture subcommittee report.

State Department planner and original architect of the Marshall Plan, George Kennan, had suggested the reductions from an original net amount of about 25 billion dollars.

The vice-president of the World Bank ruled out the Bank as a source of emergency funds for European aid in advance of implementation of the Marshall Plan. Undersecretary of State Robert Lovett had the previous week suggested the Bank as a possible source.

In Greece, Dwight Griswold, U.S. representative in charge of administering the aid under the Truman Doctrine in Greece, stated that 196,000 military and police personnel were being fed on American Army rations, costing $102,000 per day beginning September 1, at which time the Americans had taken over the task from the British. The rations provided 3,700 calories per day.

Meanwhile, the new Greek Premier, Themistokles Sophoulis, head of the Liberal Party, stated that he expected 50 percent of the northern guerillas to take advantage of the amnesty program which the new coalition Government had just proposed. Under the program, those partaking of the amnesty would be relocated to new communities if they so desired, and provided jobs.

A scheduled vote of confidence in Parliament on the new Cabinet was expected by both the opposition and the majority coalition, consisting of Liberals and Royalists, to be affirmative.

In Turkey, conservative Premier Recep Parker had reportedly resigned after a failure of support of a new Cabinet he had formed less than a week earlier, in an attempt to make the Government more moderate. President Ismet Inonu had called upon the Foreign Minister, Hasan Saka, to form a new Cabinet. Turkey, the piece notes, was receiving a hundred million dollars in military aid from the United States under the Truman Doctrine.

In Paris, an American flier, Reginald Gilbert, 24, of Birmingham, Ala., reported to have become a member of the Stern gang in Palestine, was said to be in protective custody of Scotland Yard after foiling plans of the underground Jewish organization to drop 10,000 pro-Jewish leaflets on London. Nine members of the Stern gang, including Rabbi Baruch Korff, alleged leader of the pamphlet campaign, were in French police custody as a result of Mr. Gilbert's sabotage of the campaign by means of infiltration and spying, as police said they feared for his life. The Stern members were charged under a 1939 British law forbidding possession or distribution of foreign pamphlets which could undermine defense of the country. The incident was to have been timed to coincide with the forced disembarcation of the Jewish refugees from the three ships in Hamburg following their deportation by the British after attempted illegal immigration to Palestine.

In Hamburg, the last of the Jewish refugees were unloaded from the three ships transporting them from France, where they had refused to disembark for over a month after being refused entry to Palestine. After passengers aboard the Runnymede Park undertook this date a sit-down strike and ignored two British ultimata to disembark, another battle with the British troops took place as the soldiers used firehoses and billyclubs to clear the ship—forerunner of the tactics employed by Chief of Police Bull Connor of Birmingham against black demonstrators in the early 1960's. The Jews had fought back with improvised weapons, including broken bottles and sticks tipped with barbed wire or razor blades. A number of the passengers, at least six, were carried down the gangway with heads bloodied, as they kicked and screamed at the soldiers. Twenty others appeared unconscious. The British reported that 33 persons, including 13 women, were injured in the fracus. Ten, including three British troops, were hospitalized.

The passengers aboard the Empire Rival had disembarked peaceably a few hours earlier. The passengers of the first ship, the Ocean Vigour, disembarked the previous day with violence, being clubbed, kicked, and pushed by the British, and yelling in response that the tactics were those of Hitler.

Collectively, the three ships were dubbed by Haganah, the Jewish organization which had sponsored the attempted immigration, the Exodus 1947.

At the U.N., a deadlock persisted on the Security Council regarding a resolution of the dispute anent removal of British troops from Egypt, as presented by the Arab nations. A scheduled meeting this date was re-scheduled for the next day at the request of Andrei Gromyko.

In Pittsburgh, an excursion boat, the Island Queen, exploded and was destroyed by a resulting fire while at dock on the Monongahela River, resulting in from 3 to 60 persons killed. It occurred just prior to boarding of several hundred passengers for an afternoon ride. A crewman reported 92 persons to have been aboard at the time. He said that he saw ten people on a "porch" of the boat before the blast, and then afterward could no longer see them. The boat regularly traveled between Cincinnati and Pittsburgh and had left for a ten-day cruise from Cincinnati the previous Saturday. The boat could accommodate 4,000 passengers.

In Fort Worth, Texas, a Federal District Court Judge upheld the provision of Taft-Hartley requiring affidavits from unions averring that their officers were not Communists, failing which the union could not participate in collective bargaining. It was the first ruling on a test case of the provision. The Court held that the provision only applied to a privilege, collective bargaining, which could be limited in the case of those seeking to destroy the Government.

J. A. Daly of The News tells of Duke Power agreeing to resurvey its Charlotte routes to determine whether they met the needs of the city, and having announced that G.M. had promised delivery of fifteen new buses, to begin service shortly after mid-November. Duke currently had 79 buses operating in the city, 43 on "regular" runs and 36 on "extra" runs on the regular routes. Duke stated that their buses had fewer breakdowns than those reported in other cities and that the equipment was above average when compared to that of other cities.

We shall look forward to those new buses to alleviate the overcrowding and hostility being displayed at present. Also, the smokers have been particularly annoying, despite the new ordinance. So...

Burke Davis of The News reports on reaction to the complaints by women the previous day to the County Board of Commissioners regarding treatment of inmates at the County Industrial Home, the reform school for young girls. The complainants had brought forth reports of inmates being maintained indefinitely in solitary confinement, in one instance for four months.

Within hours, a three-person committee of the City Council had toured the Home and found no evidence of brutality. But they ordered the inmate held for four months to be immediately released from solitary confinement. She had been in a small cell for all but a few days of her time in custody on a one-year sentence.

The matron of the facility, responsible for the treatment, claimed that the inmate was hard to handle, had cut two girls during previous stays at the facility, and, in any event, had a cell which was clean and airy, replete with an electric fan. She said, "You know I wouldn't put her where there wasn't any air; I wouldn't treat a kitten that way."

Sieg heil, mein kommandant.

In Lillington, N.C., a man was sentenced to 12 to 18 months on the roads for cutting a hound dog's throat with his pocketknife.

It seems that dogs got more justice than people sometimes in 1947 North Carolina.

On the sports page, Furman Bisher tells of the Tri-State League fourth-place Charlotte Hornets beginning a series against the first-place Spartanburg Peaches with a 5-0 shutout the night before.

On the editorial page, "Ways to Help Mental Patients" gleans from the Burke Davis reports on the mental facilities of the state and county that while a large amount of money was being spent on mental patients, much of it was being wasted through too much division of authority.

Coordination of the work was thus the first goal. And it had to start at the county level. It suggests that Mecklenburg hire a psychiatrist on a part-time basis, seek a ward from the Memorial Hospital, build a new receiving hospital, and put in place new rules which would enable the Welfare Department to begin work on cases early in the process, before individiuals reached the point of incarceration or commitment. Expansion of the Social Work Department was also needed, as only two workers and one assistant serviced the entire county. The county was awaiting state-authorized funding for an outpatient clinic program.

At the state level, use of Camp Sutton and Camp Butner would raise capacity by 2,500 beds, but only a third of those were thus far being utilized.

A primary fault was the failure to make the most of what was already available in mental health care.

"Signs of Democratic Revival" tells of Republican popularity declining in Gallup polls while the opinions registered of the President in Fortune were improving. But Washington observers were still betting on the Republicans to take the 1948 election, even if the prediction was made weakly.

The indications were that the New Deal was on the rise again in popularity, despite Republican attempts to bury it. Taft-Hartley had helped the process along. Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas had recently stated at a rally for Democrats, heard on radio, that the Republicans could not understand the plight of housewives trying to make budgets fit rising prices. Mayor Hubert Humphrey of Minneapolis was being touted as the person to recover the Midwest for the Democrats, having appeal to both farmers and labor.

It concludes that with the third party hopes of Henry Wallace dimming, the nation uniting behind the Administration's foreign policy, labor solidly in the Democratic camp again, and farmers increasingly so, the polls alone did not tell the whole story of what was likely to occur in 1948.

"Progress in Labor Relations" informs of Senators Robert Taft and Joseph Ball both declaring that they did not believe Taft-Hartley was being violated by unions trying to avoid damage suits from employers from wildcat strikes by signing contracts which waived the provision allowing such suits. Congressman Fred Hartley, who took a contrary position, was planning to retire at the end of the term. And so it appeared that political considerations were behind the difference in the Senate and House interpretations of the new labor law.

It did not appear that Senators Taft and Ball were alarmed by the AFL and CIO threats to wreak political vengeance on those responsible for Taft-Hartley.

Nor were they concerned regarding a Tin Pan Alley hit titled, "Have a Heart, Taft, Hartley"—the lyrics of which ought to have included, "Have a tart, taffy, boys, and smartly."

Whatever the cause, the two Senators appeared to be exhibiting, in their spirit of compromise, more common sense than the Republicans in the House, led by Mr. Hartley.

A piece from the Louisville Courier-Journal, titled "Free Enterprise Needs Courage", finds the statement by a representative of Bethlehem Steel that the steel supply was adequate for America's domestic needs and foreign commitments to be poppycock, given that steel was scarce and costly, producing profits for the steel companies. Such notions suggested that industrialists were taking the view that American productivity had reached its crest, thus were being conservative.

The attitude played into the hands of the country's enemies in the struggle between democracy and autocracy and free enterprise versus regimentation.

It suggests that Henry Kaiser's form of dynamic capitalism had the best chance of scoring points for the American form of economy, which now stood alone in the world. Mr. Kaiser had charged Big Steel with deliberately limiting productive capacity for padding its own pocketbook. That was no longer capitalism and free enterprise.

Drew Pearson tells of the New York Grand Jury probe conducted by the Justice Department being anent missing blueprints for the B-29, among other military secrets which appeared to have been leaked to the Russians. The investigation had narrowed to three men in the Treasury and War Departments, all minor officials.

He explains the process of delivery of the information, via photographed documents, which had taken place during the war. The Army was already aware that the Soviets had been able to build several B-29's as a result. The information about the espionage was uncovered in consequence of a Soviet spy arrested in the 1946 Canadian spy case.

He next tells of the conflict developing in the administration of the aid to Greece between former Governor Dwight Griswold of Nebraska, in charge of the administration of the aid, desirous of moving rapidly, and Ambassador Lincoln MacVeigh, wanting to move slowly. Both were behaving as head administrator vis-à-vis the Greek Government. Their primary disagreement was in how to purge the Government of unwanted elements, Mr. MacVeigh favoring a slow process of allowing the Greeks to do it for themselves, while Mr. Griswold wanted affirmative intervention in the process. Since he first arrived, he had sought a new Cabinet, which had finally transpired in the new coalition Government, a change which Mr. Pearson regards as healthy.

But the real problem lay in the northern guerillas with their Communist backing. That trouble was only increasing.

He informs of a suit in New York by a customer against the Bell subsidiary, seeking refund of fees for the period of interruption in dial service caused by the recent strike. If it should be successful, then the precedent could have long ranging effects on the Bell Company subsidiaries. The legal basis for the suit was that the phone company operated as a monopoly, leaving customers with no other choice but to subscribe to the Bell system.

Victor Riesel tells of the FBI examining the unions and their national newspapers for potential violations of Taft-Hartley, in the latter area regarding any now forbidden politicking for candidates. The union leaders in some areas were actually begging to be arrested for just that form of conduct, to present a test case to the courts under freedom of speech.

The companies were spending millions of dollars on studies to determine how wildcat strikes began, in an effort to avoid them. So, too, were the unions, for under the new law, they could be sued for a wildcat strike by any of their members, even if the leaders had not sanctioned the strike and had tried to prevent it. Such strikes could cripple a whole industry and usually started over small disputes, at the level of the relationship between the foreman and the workers under him, someone becoming offended over a minor grievance, walking out, leading others in sympathy in a given shop, and then spreading across a whole industry for want of a particular widget not being supplied by the striking shop.

The corporations and many of the larger unions in consequence were urging better relations between foremen and the shop stewards. Ford was spending half a million dollars in special human relations studies. Western Electric had spent a million dollars in determining how to foster better human understanding within their plants.

He concludes that there might yet be peace in labor relations in the country.

Samuel Grafton tells of a story in the New York Times, quoting a traveler from Lahore in India relating of an incident in which Moslems stopped a train and ordered the Sikhs aboard to disembark lest they be dragged off the train. Aware of their fate, the Sikhs nevertheless complied, whereupon they were clubbed to death. Mr. Grafton wonders how anyone could meet death so unemotionally.

He had talked to a friend, a restaurateur, about this incident and about the restaurant having to raise beer to 15 cents because the supplier's prices had risen. The friend believed it would kill his business. He said that everybody was doing likewise, knowing what the result would be. He laughed at the suggestion of a return to price control.

Mr. Grafton wonders why it was so regarded, as the experiment of a year without controls had clearly had the opposite result from the lowering of prices predicted by the proponents of elimination of the controls. Mr. Grafton told his friend that it was akin to the Hindus not eating the sacred cow even if starving. His friend did not understand the analogy.

He concludes that the United States was built on practicality and so it was difficult to understand the stoicism of India.

A letter from the pastor of the Thomasboro Baptist Church comments on the editorial "American Bigotry in Rome", anent the Southern Baptists objecting to the President reappointing Myron Taylor as American diplomatic envoy to the Vatican and to the President's exchange of correspondence with Pope Pius. The objection was based on the First Amendment Establishment Clause, providing for separation of church and state.

He comments on the recent Supreme Court decision upholding a school district practice of busing Catholic parochial school students on public buses as a public service, not violative of separation doctrine. He thinks it would be just as fair for the Baptists to use taxpayer money to bus children to Sunday school—not at all analogous, as Catholic school is not the equivalent of Sunday school and the public school system is certainly not the equivalent of any particular religious sect as the Baptists.

He agrees with the Baptists in saying that the Vatican preached "clerical totalitarianism".

And, we suppose, if there were any tint of truth to the notion, no Baptist preachers were ever guilty of the charge themselves—witness this rather foolish letter.

A letter wonders why The News had stopped carrying Herblock cartoons.

The editors respond that he was merely on vacation for three weeks, would return September 20.

A letter writer tells of following a News delivery person as he drove along Route 29 expertly throwing his papers. She and her companion finally stopped the young man and complimented him on his work. He presented them with a complementary paper and went on his way. She finds it commending of the newspaper generally.

The editors name the deliverer as Will Dowd McRorie, who took a bow for his skill and courtesy.

A letter writer describes the British attack on the passengers of the Ocean Vigour the previous day to suggest "piracy, murder, prison ships". Some of the passengers among the 1,200 being disembarked were beaten by British officers to get them to leave the ship in Hamburg for transport to a detention camp. They had refused for over a month to disembark in France after being deported from Palestine following an illegal attempt at immigration.

He finds the episode to be the fault of the Labor Government of Clement Attlee and Ernest Bevin.

And FDR, we suppose, started the war.

And the Churchill Government and the Conservative Party in Britain, no doubt, supported unlimited immigration to Palestine.

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