Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that in Paris, the gold
monetary program being put forward by Premier Robert Schuman
appeared to be achieving narrow victory in the National Assembly,
having been narrowly approved by an Assembly committee the previous
day. The Gaullists opposed the measure. The Government had tacitly
made approval of the program, which would permit free trade in gold
within France while devaluing the franc and establishing a free
currency market, a condition for the continuation of the coalition
Government, though not yet asking for a vote of confidence. Only the
gold measure was subject to approval by the Assembly and the
Socialists, who had initially opposed the position, had determined
to abstain from voting. But it remained questionable whether the
Government, which included Socialists in the coalition, could
continue.
The majority of the House Ways & Means Committee, having
approved the day before the Knutson tax cut proposal of 6.3 billion
dollars, reported that it could be achieved with enough of a surplus
to pay eleven billion dollars toward reduction of Government war
debt. The measure would go to the floor for a vote on Monday,
virtually assured of passage by the Republican majority.
Former Senator Robert La Follette of Wisconsin told the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee that if Western Europe were to
fall under Communist domination, it was doubtful that America could
maintain its independence. He favored U.S. aid to Western Europe as
the only means to save it. But he also stressed that, ultimately,
only the Europeans could save themselves by increasing production.
He served the previous fall on the Harriman Committee to survey the
nation's resources to determine its ability to produce adequately
for service of both domestic needs and the Marshall Plan.
Senator Charles Tobey of New Hampshire wanted to know who the
forces were who had convinced the President to demote Marriner
Eccles from chairman to vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.
He deplored it and believed the President had placed himself in a
very bad position by the move.
Relax. He just did it to give you something more about which
to get mad and investigate.
Steelworkers of the CIO, headed by Philip Murray, announced
that they would seek a new contract in 1948, the third such postwar
raise. The CIO United Electrical Workers had also announced that
they would seek a substantial wage increase, and the packinghouse
workers wanted 29 cents more per hour. Those unions joined the UAW, which
announced earlier it would seek higher wages, starting at GM, then
Chrysler. The Ford contract was not yet set to expire.
Robert Denham, counsel to the NLRB, charged GM with an unfair
labor practice under Taft-Hartley by refusing to bargain collectively with
the CIO UAW regarding establishment of an insurance plan.
According to White House press secretary Charles G. Ross,
George Baker of Harvard's School of Transportation turned down the
offer of appointment as chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board
because of the $10,000 salary. The law prohibited the appointee from
holding a job in the private sector while serving as Board chairman.
In the winter snowstorm gripping the nation from the Rockies
to the Gulf and Eastern Seaboard, the death toll had reached 160,
with 250,000 workers idle, as fuel oil shortages continued to plague
the country. Temperatures in Colorado were as low as 50 degrees
below zero, a bit nippy. Fuel deliveries to industries in Detroit
were cut off for at least a week. Some 200,000 autoworkers could not
report to work. In Pittsburgh, 15,000 steel workers were stranded at
home. In Ohio, about 25,000 workers had to stay away from work. In
Texas, 44 South Plains towns, including Lubbock, were without proper
gas.
Two more aftershocks were felt in Iloilo on Panay in the
Philippines, where it was reported that 3.5 million dollars worth of
damage and loss of 200 houses had occurred. The unofficial death
toll stood at 28.
East Carolina Teachers College, in Greenville, N.C., had an
enrollment of 1,354 students for the winter semester, which were not
so many as there were on a North Carolina ant hill.
In Charlotte, Mayor Herbert Baxter endorsed "Marshall's
Dream", the plan for urban renewal, to replace slums with a
pleasant esplanade from City Hall and Courthouse Squares to
Stonewall Street. What happened after Stonewall Street, we cannot
say. The plan was so dubbed after its architect, Engineer J. B.
Marshall.
It has not been made clear just what would happen to the
residents of the slums to be eliminated under the plan. Guess they
could maybe hang out in tents and cardboard boxes on the pleasant
esplanade, or go over and live in the railroad cars when more luxury
was desirable.
Perhaps, however, we sell the City Council and Planning
Commission short. We shall see.
Maybe they will come up with a dream community in the
all-white suburbs for these displaced black residents, to be
assimilated into perfect harmony with the surrounding community, in
houses with white columns and beautiful porticoes, apple trees and
trimmed hedges in perfectly symmetrical rows, with lovely ladies in
hoop skirts and gentlemen in tails and top hats populating every
yard and pleasantly waving to passersby. Call the new village
Harmony.
In London, Loretta Young had caused an uproar in the London
press by having said that the British were short on essentials,
suggesting, among other things, that factory workers fainted
every day on the job at around 11:00 a.m. for want of nourishment.
They obviously needed a Dr. Pepper at 10. Send then some Dr.
Pepper.
She also said that Englishmen wore beards for want of razor
blades.
But if you give them razor blades while they are delirious
from hunger, would that not potentially lead to mass suicides or
murders?
She also said that people walked on cardboard patched shoes
and that fish was being cooked in paraffin for lack of fats.
That's easy of remedy. Send then some Fats Waller records.
The Daily Mirror headline read: "The Things Some
People See", suggesting in the story that she had got back to
America with "an aching heart for all the hunger and shivering
she thought she saw."
The London News printed the headline: "Life In
Britain, By Loretta Young".
The Daily Herald said that it normally did not print
"fiction", but would make exception this time. It
explained that she had claimed that she gave a child a piece of
chocolate and the child had replied, "Do I lick it or bite it?"
Obvious enough: It had to have been a Peter Paul Mounds, on
which the child had never clapped eyes. C'mon, Loretta.
The Herald editorial replied that the children enjoyed
chocolates and sweets, not affordable before the war in as much
quantity as allowed under the rationing plan of the Labor
Government. It also informed that the nation was tired and "drained
of feeling" from the war and could not do better than the
considerable production achievements of the postwar period thus far.
Well, our reaction is that we think that Mr. Lennon ought
apologize for causing us to believe for many, many years that his
friend, Mr. McCartney, perhaps had an ulterior motive in his lyric,
obviously now unraveled as to its true meaning. It was the case that
"Sweet Loretta Fat", as Mr. Lennon called her, who thought
she was a cleaner, but was in fact a frying pan, obviously knowing
therefore the cryptic symbology being employed, was none other than
Ms. Young.
And, as always, we did not, could not, would not, for we had
not the print or the energy with which so to superintend, look ahead to find
this story. Nor had anyone to our knowledge ever linked the two in
print or otherwise.
General Eisenhower was reported to be expecting a grandchild
in April. His name would be David, born March 31, for whom Camp
David is named. He would later marry the daughter of President
Nixon, Julie.
By dint of coincidence, Tennessee Congressman Albert Gore and his wife were also expecting a child, to be named for his father, also to be born March 31.
In Los Angeles, Chico Marx had sued Warner Brothers for
$200,000 for use of his name, without his permission, in the movie
"Rhapsody in Blue". He was particularly annoyed because of
attribution of his approval of certain piano playing techniques of
which he did not approve.
If we were representing the studio, the first question we
might ask the comedian was whether there was a Sanity Clause in the
contract in which he did not provide permission to the studio for
use of his name in association with the piano playing technique of
which he did not in fact approve.
And if it did, why did he not sign it? If it did not, then
the company could not possibly be liable as the contract did not
exist in the eyes of the law, and so was null and void ab initio,
ipso facto, meaning that Warner Brothers had no contract with
him not to use the reference to his name, in which case, obviously,
it could. Stare v. Decisis, 8 Q. B., 1587 Wollcott, J. Sine
die.
If he should be so ineluctably temerarious as to answer, "Why you Wanna no approve my disapproval?" we might ask for a
momentary recess to gather our thoughts.
Frank Morgan says: "As Seneca, the Roman philosopher,
once observed, 'Life is a play; it's not the length, but the
performance that counts.' Which reminds me that about the time one
learns to make the most of life, the most of it is gone."
On the editorial page, "Hard Lesson in Rent Control"
tells of landlords in Japan going cuckoo over rent control sought to
be imposed by the MacArthur occupation. A provision to limit land
prices to the price fixed for rice was rejected by the landlords
such that rice was now 1,700 yen per koku, the amount of rice to feed an average person for a year, whereas it had been 92
yen, while land prices had remained stationary. Just as American
landlords, the Japanese landlords had not understood the
macroeconomic theory behind rent control and had sought to evade it,
with disastrous results.
The rent control provision in the U.S. passed the previous
year, extending rent control for a year to February 20, enabled the
signing of a lease lasting through 1948, provided the tenant
accepted up to a 15 percent increase, thus locking in the rent
beyond the rent-control period established by the bill. But only
nine percent of tenants had assented to the 15 percent increase. How
the Congress would resolve the problem remained up in the air,
whether to continue the current solution for another year or to
allow the 15 percent increase without the necessity of the landlord
providing an extended lease.
You now understand everything, save the Boston grass. Tuscon,
Arizona, is so very obvious as to be demeaning to your faculties to
deign elucidate its Eleusinian mystery.
"Gallup Poll Angers the GOP" tells of Republicans
disputing the accuracy of the Gallup Poll showing President Truman
leading all Republican candidates in the race, save General
Eisenhower, now officially not a candidate since the previous week.
Doris Fleeson, a Washington columnist, wrote that "historical
indicators" revealed a different story, with Democrats without
any gubernatorial posts in New England, save in Rhode Island, and
none in pivotal states across the nation—unable thus to gerrymander
districts as could the Republicans. The Democratic big-city bosses
were no longer so powerful. And, quoth the Republicans, there had
been past "glaring" Gallup errors.
The piece suggests that the Republicans, should they hope to
win, pay more attention to the mood of the people, especially the
independent voters who would decide the election, than to
"historical indicators".
As we know, the Republicans were exactly right and the major
polls on the eve of the election proved exactly wrong. The
Republicans finally got something right.
Query whether the Republican complaints at this juncture
caused a shift in the sampling techniques of the pollsters, leading
to the notorious disaster of 1948 polling predictions. Polls
typically skew samples on the basis of the previous election's
turnout ratios between the parties, the percentage of the sample
polled being a function of the percentage of registered voters of a
party who cast their ballots in the previous election in a particular district. If District
A had, for instance, 50 percent Democrats, 40 percent Republicans
and ten percent Independents voting in the previous presidential
election, those ratios would generally be maintained in the polling
sample to obtain an accurate reflection of the district's
preferences among candidates. The swing districts most usually
selecting the winner in the elections historically would be given
the most weight typically in polling data.
Perhaps, on urging by the Republicans, the polls changed that
formula, giving the Republicans more weight than that to which they
were entitled based on "historical trends", explaining the
historical fumble.
Moral: Be careful of that for which you wish, especially
having gained control of both houses of Congress in the mid-term
election, and then doing little, if anything, to effect cooperation
with the President, showing him downright disrespect, winding up
earning, properly, the disrespect of the country and being credibly
denounced as the "do-nothing Congress". Investigating
everybody, with emphasis on those with whom you disagree, is not the way to win friends and influence people.
"Chancellor Flowers of Duke" tells of the Duke
Board of Trustees accepting the resignation of the Duke president,
Robert Flowers, and allowing him to become chancellor, a new
position at Duke.
He had been associated with the institution since 1891, when
it was Trinity College, had been a professor there for 40 years, and
was widely respected by the students he had taught. And as an
administrator, he had helped to shape the institution into the
modern university which it had come to be, out of the small Methodist college which it had been. He had largely
realized the dream charted by founder James B. Duke and president
William P. Few, the latter having died in 1940, at which point, the
mantle had passed to Dr. Flowers.
It posits that the institution was fortunate to have him
remain as chancellor and that, being on the threshold of a great era
of service to the nation and humanity, it should take great care in
naming a new president in the tradition of Dr. Few and Dr. Flowers.
A piece from the Louisville Courier-Journal,
"Imperialism's Decline in East", tells of the crumbling of
empires as the U.S. had provided for independence of the
Philippines; Great Britain having done so with respect to India and
Burma; Holland, with regard to Indonesia; France, contemplating
greater freedom for Indo-China; and most recently, Great Britain
planning to allow self-rule in the Malayan states. There was also
the prospect of giving Korea, occupied by the U.S. and Russia since
war's end, back to Koreans, and Formosa back to its native
inhabitants.
But enlightenment was not the primary impelling force behind
the policy of liberation. Rather, the mother countries could no
longer afford to sustain their empire interests after the war.
Britain was still maintaining control of Singapore and Hong
Kong but the tendency toward independence moved the world closer to
the time when "one world" could be a reality.
Drew Pearson tells of General MacArthur having fired General
Eisenhower, when the latter was Lieutenant Colonel, as his assistant
in the Philippines before the war. Since that time, the two men had
not been on good terms and General Eisenhower's friends had reported
that it was why he had inserted into his withdrawal statement the
admonition that no military career man should aspire to the
presidency absent extraordinary circumstances, which obviously he
believed did not inhere at present. The words were aimed directly at
General MacArthur, to deter him from running and the Republicans
from drafting him.
In Atlanta, KKK Grand Dragon Sam Green, a physician, was
against election of Herman Talmadge in the upcoming gubernatorial
primary—despite Mr. Talmadge having come out in favor of an
all-white primary to be achieved through a test to be given on
knowledge of the Constitution, as determined subjectively by voter
registrars, and saying that 90 percent of black people were
unqualified to vote whereas 90 percent of white people, including
illiterates, had the necessary mental wherewithal to do so.
Dr. Richard Eubank, a dentist, had, however, led the Klavern
No. 1 meeting in January when the decision was made to support Mr.
Talmadge—the previous year having been selected by the Legislature
to become Governor in the stead of his father, Eugene, who had died
before taking office in late 1946. After a bitter fight with the
Lt.-Governor-elect M. E. Thompson, supported by outgoing Governor
Ellis Arnall, the State Supreme Court had determined that the
correct interpretation of the Georgia Constitution established
succession by Mr. Thompson. Mr. Talmadge, who had in the meantime
occupied the Governor's Mansion and the Governor's office at the
Capitol, and barred Governor Arnall and Lt.-Governor Thompson from
it utilizing state police, stepped aside until the 1948 election.
But others in the Klavern disfavored the backing of Mr.
Talmadge, recalling that his father had been anti-labor, supporting
a dollar per day in wages for the worker.
Dr. Green had held a meeting the previous week to try to heal
the kackling krack among the Krackers in the Klavern.
Hey, fellas. How about supporting comprehensive
state-provided medical and tooth care? It's states' rights. Then
there's no need to depend on the employer for it.
The Republicans, with General Eisenhower definitely now not running, were planning to stress in the coming
campaign the President's appointment of an extraordinary number of
military men to civilian Government positions. The President had
said recently to Democratic Senators that he did not intend to use
military personnel as long as he could find qualified civilians; but
absent that, there was no reason to refuse to appoint qualified
military personnel. Senators Burnet Rhett Maybank of South Carolina and
Harry Flood Byrd of Virginia had sided with Republicans in voting
against confirmation of Maj. General Laurence Kuter to be head of
CAB. Other Democrats voted "present", neither confirming
nor opposing confirmation.
He tells of Senator Ralph Flanders of Vermont eagerly
protesting a bill on coinage, to make unnecessary future bills on
coinage, on the ground that the bill was unnecessary—until two of
his colleagues whispered to him that it was a bill which he had
sponsored.
Marquis Childs tells of Ambassador to Iran George V. Allen
giving up that post to become Assistant Secretary of State for
information services, including the Voice of America. He was fourth
or fifth choice, as the others had rejected the appointment. But he
was eminently qualified for the job, important for its role in
combating Soviet propaganda with information on America to be
disseminated through Eastern Europe and into the Soviet Union.
With the cut in half of the budget for the Information
Service the previous summer, many of the most qualified people in
the agency had resigned.
The Information Service beamed up to two million words per
week and it was inevitable that not every member of Congress would
agree with every statement made. Editorial criticism recently had
been aimed at the information distributed in China for not
adequately criticizing the Government of Chiang Kai-Shek. But if
every such statement were challenged, the result would be a void of
information.
He expresses the hope that Congress would grant Mr. Allen a
free hand in putting forth information, that he might have a chance
before any effort would be made to censor or limit him. Senator
Alexander Smith of New Jersey had said as much in his report on the
Mundt bill, which had cut the funding for the agency. But Senator
Smith had also stated that criticism would be proper if there were
reflected any persistent partisanship in the information purveyed.
Mr. Allen's predecessor, William Benton, had never been given that
opportunity.
Samuel Grafton tells of the devaluation of the franc to the
point where a dollar was legally worth 300 francs, whereas
previously the value had been 119, or 240 on the black market. In
Britain also, times were tough economically, as shortages abounded
for want of imports, the theory being that goods produced at home
should be exported to America to obtain needed dollars and credits.
The target was the upper class.
Because of inflated prices leaving inessential goods outside
the reach of most Americans, American business also was looking to
the upper class as the primary consumer base. He suggests that the
upper class consumer thus had great responsibility for keeping the
American economy and that of Britain and France afloat.
He questions whether the target customer, however, actually
existed in sufficient numbers to meet the task, doubts that it was
so, making it the more important for the Marshall Plan to be passed
so that Europe could recover economically and sustain its own
production, likewise, for the Baruch plan of inflation control to be
implemented to assure stability of the domestic economy in the
meantime, to allow for the necessary production to support the Plan.
A letter writer responds all too politely to the nut case who
had proposed giving Russia an ultimatum of ending its expansionist
policies or dropping an atomic bomb on Moscow, by referencing former
Secretary of War under FDR and former Secretary of State under
President Hoover, Henry L. Stimson, writing in the October issue of
Foreign Affairs, counseling instead patience with Russia in
the postwar world. Mr. Stimson condemned those who were fellow
travelers in America, but also those who favored strong-arm tactics
toward Russia. He favored approval of the Marshall Plan as a way
affirmatively to defeat Russian expansion while fostering peace, not
war.
The writer agrees.
A letter writer is opposed to any long-term commitment to
ERP.
He also thinks Winston-Salem and Forsyth County, in being the
only county nationwide not to have a March of Dimes drive because it
questioned the proper expenditure of the money collected, had
performed a service by expressing doubt as to the charitable purpose
of the organization, not approved by the National Information
Bureau, set up to determine the adherence to eleemosynary purposes in public solicitations.
See there? That's why we still have polio in this country by
the billions. It's those corrupt New Dealers again with their fancy
Yankee talk and policies of Federal control, taking your guns,
shape-shifting, lizard-looking, coming down here telling us what to
do, contrary to the good John Birch people who are omniscient
beings. Everybody knows that Franklin Roosenfeldenowitz, his real
name, was actually not a cripple. He could walk as good as anyone.
There are pictures, friends, which prove it. We have them, but we
are afraid of instant death from a laser-sighted high-powered rifle
should we reveal them. But the truth cannot be hidden forever: It
was just a Roosenfeldenowitz ruse to arouse sympathy. Now, don't you
feel stupid?
And in fact, Paul Revere did warn the British of the coming
of the Americans over the sea to attack at the Alamo in New Orleans
in 1814. And the British did not burn the White House. That was just
another Government false-flag operation to inspire sympathy for a
corrupt war.
In fact, the fire erupted after Doll Tearsheet, a girl-servant at the White House, thought to be the mistress of the President, was caught under the rosebushes smoking, and, that practice being forbidden to girls of the time, she quickly tried to extinguish her clay pipe, at which point, it being August and the rosebuds being dried up, one bush caught fire and quickly spread to the back porch at which point the whole place erupted in apocalyptic conflagration as might a tinderbox. The President, naturally to protect his mistress from the angry crowds who were shouting with acridity in unison outside the Executive Mansion, "Hang the rascal responsible for this and end the War now," saw the opportunity at once to engage public ardor in the cause and service of the Government, and so created the false story that the British had lit the match.
It is believed also, though not proved yet, that the killing of Tecumseh was effected actually and personally by Andrew Jackson, a Democrat, not at the direction of William Henry Harrison, a Whig, and that thus only Democrats should be the subject of the Curse, regardless of party affiliation, as we do not wish to seem biased, being as we are, fair and balanced. In fact, "Old Hickory" surreptitiously sported the scalp of Tecumseh for years afterward on his belt, revealing same only to select company in his presence, in a manner suggestive of his seductive powers with the ladies, the rumor of which further irritating the Shawnee Nation, which then decided by collective council to act, until some drunken Indian at its head got the names confused after came forth the slogan, "Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too", he mispronouncing it "Tuppercanoe", thought it rhymed with Tecumseh and so erroneously cast the curse upon President Harrison and successors elected in zero years, albeit the catch, of course, being that the Curse only applies to males. And the rest is history. It takes 2020 vision to understand these things.
Don't even get us started on the Civil War. We have not lost
yet. There was never a truce, as that weakling Lee did not represent
all Southerners anyway and was secretly conspiring all along against
the South in favor of his old cronies from West Point. Why else
would that old pansy have given up his guns to the Government?
