The Charlotte News
Thursday, November 25, 1948
TWO EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that six tons of turkey were airlifted into Berlin for the American residents. General Lucius Clay praised all hands, especially the airlift crews, in the American occupation zone for the job performed during the blockade since late June.
High-ranking Soviet bloc sources said that the Western powers were preparing to wreck the chance of a Berlin settlement in furtherance of their own military plans in Europe, the NATO pact, rearming of Western Europe, and establishment of military bases on the Continent.
Secretary of State Marshall rejected the French protests regarding the U.S.-British plan to turn the industrial Ruhr back over to Germany rather than internationalizing it as sought by the French. To allay their concerns, he invited the French to participate in supervision of the Ruhr coal and steel industries.
No decision had yet been reached, according to Secretary Marshall, on whether to seek from Congress appropriation of additional military and financial aid for China.
He again had no comment on whether he intended to resign his post.
In Caracas, a military junta took over provisional control of the Government of Venezuela this date, after a bloodless coup toppled the Government of El Presidente Romulo Gallegos. Lt. Col. Carlos Delgado Chaulbaud, Defense Minister in the Gallegos Cabinet, was named president of the junta. Other members of the junta included Lt. Col. Marcos Perez Jimenez and Lt. Col. Luis Llovera Paez. Lt. Col. Mario Vargas, leader of the 1945 revolt which had overthrown El Presidente Isaias Medina Angarita, gave his assent to the coup. Sr. Gallegos had taken office the previous February as the nation's first elected El Presidente by direct vote.
The military, however, obviously didn't like him.
Americans this date generally celebrated Thanksgiving, with Americans sharing their goods with the European nations through the Marshall Plan.
The President the previous day had received a 33-pound live Oregon master tom turkey as a gift from the Salem Exchange Club. It was his seventh turkey.
On New York's Bowery, the Down-and-Outer Association planned its annual free Thanksgiving dinner for the indigent.
Thousands of new immigrants from Europe celebrated their first Thanksgiving. Forty-five such young boys and girls ate turkey the previous day at the New York YMCA.
In Portland, Ore., the CIO convention was considering a resolution on whether to provide power to the organization to expand into fields where CIO unions had failed to attract membership, thus denying splinter leftist unions the opportunity to organize in these areas. The previous day, the convention approved overwhelmingly the continuance of CIO PAC activity, following another anti-Communist speech by president Philip Murray.
The East Coast longshoremen's strike appeared nearing its end, as agreement on terms for a wage increase had been reached between shipping owners and the AFL-affiliated International Longshoremen's Association. The agreement still had to be ratified by the rank-and-file membership
A10-month strike of pilots against National Airlines was resolved.
In Boulder, Colo., a 31-year old man was in custody, believed by police to be the murderer of an 18-year old Colorado University coed, found strangled to death the night of November 9. The man's wife told police that she suspected her husband to be the perpetrator of the crime. He admitted to police disposing of the young woman's body but claimed that he did not kill her. He said that he picked her up along with a young blonde man who then knocked him unconscious. When he awoke, he said, the man was gone and the woman's body was in the trunk of his car.
In Seffner, Fla., a 14-year old boy who had weighed 105 pounds the previous June had wasted away to 35 pounds after being stricken with a rare and painful disease, dermatomyositis, which caused atrophy of the muscle tissue. He had only about two weeks to live. He begged his father to be euthanized. He had already made plans for his own funeral.
In Eccleshall, England, six husky boys seized Eric Wildman, president of the National Society for the Retention of Corporal Punishment in Schools, and began whipping him during his lecture. Mr. Wildman made whipping canes for schoolmasters and had brought 20 such canes to Horsley Hall, a "self-expression" school in which the students did as they pleased and were never punished. One of the students sat on his head, another pinned his ankles, and a third drew up his coat, whereupon a 16-year old gave Mr. Wildman six strokes with one of his own canes. Press were present.
The headmaster of the school explained that he had arranged the incident prior to Mr. Wildman's appearance, to reinforce the notion that corporal punishment was not allowed at Horsley.
Mr. Wildman threatened to see his lawyers.
In Los Angeles, streetcars were made to appear as candy canes and would go into operation the following Monday, in conjunction with the lighting of a 95-foot Christmas tree in Pershing Square.
Whether any of the candy canes would
be used to whip either wild men or wild horses headed to Mexico
remained to be seen
On the editorial page, "For All These Things" suggests that despite hardship in the country, there was much for which to be thankful on Thanksgiving, the ability to help others abroad from the plenty produced by the abundance of the land and industry.
In the South, the weather had been muggy and foggy, not characteristic of Thanksgiving. But turkey and pumpkin pie ingredients had sold well.
The South had much for which to be thankful in its new prosperity, gradual elimination of urban slums, and rural electrification.
"Though poverty, sickness and war still plague us, though all is not right with the world, God is in His heaven and there is hope. There has always been hope and there always will be hope; and for the divine gift of hope there should be an eternal thanksgiving."
"A New Generation" discusses the coming to political power of Herman Talmadge as Governor of Georgia and Russell Long as Senator from Louisiana, the sons of well known Southern demagogues, deceased Governor Eugene Talmadge and assassinated former Governor and Senator Huey Long. To many, this resurgence represented a return to the old race-baiting era. But both men talked of wanting to pass social legislation, Russell Long admitting that his father wanted change quickly, for which he was willing to raise hell to obtain, whereas fils was realistic enough to realize that change would occur only slowly and with patience.
In Georgia, votes were routinely purchased and fraud at the polls was common, no doubt contributing to the victory of Mr. Talmadge.
Part of their appeal was that they were sons of demagogues and, in the case of Eugene Talmadge, a race-baiter who led with a message of white supremacy. With outside intervention threatened on civil rights, the old message had found renewed appeal with the woolhats.
But, the piece concludes, both young men, Mr. Talmadge being 35 and Mr. Long, 30, were entitled to a fair chance to show whether they were bound to follow in their fathers' footsteps or would provide a new, youthful vision out of their own, more modern experience.
A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled "Neck Still Extending", finds surprising AFL's campaign to oust Secretary of State Marshall from his post. The organization did not appear to dislike the Marshall Plan, but distrusted its planner. It was not recommending anyone else for the position, however, and so the editorial concludes that AFL was simply throwing its weight around. It opines that AFL was as capitalistic as the National Association of Manufacturers.
The first Thanksgiving Proclamation by President George Washington is provided verbatim, from October 3, 1789. Thanksgiving that year occurred on Thursday, November 26.
Drew Pearson had returned from Paris optimistic that the Russians, by spring, would lift the Berlin blockade once they realized the airlift would work to supply Berliners through the winter. He told the President that the Russians were distressed over adverse public opinion in Europe regarding the blockade. The Russians also were upset that ERP was having more success than anticipated and because the U.N. had consistently voted against Russian interests. The Paris meeting had lined up solidly against the Russians whereas Soviet propaganda had been more successful in New York the previous year.
The success of ERP was the reason for the continuing Soviet ploys to upset it. The Iron Curtain satellites also were finding it hard to conceal their desire to participate in ERP.
The Soviets operated without the pressure of Russian public opinion to monitor them, whereas the U.S. had the entire world looking over its shoulder. The operation in a fishbowl and its consequent stress was one reason Secretary of State Marshall wanted to resign.
Secretary of Defense James Forrestal was contacting friends to try to retain his job, a turnabout from earlier in the year, prior to the elections, when he appeared not to care, was ready to resign. The President, however, had been so at odds with Mr. Forrestal for not obeying the Commander-in-Chief on occasion that it was not likely he would succeed in remaining.
The Council of Economic Advisers had told the President that prosperity was set to continue through 1949, were more concerned about inflation than recession.
Western intelligence had it that Andrei Gromyko was in a status of oblivion in Soviet circles, apparently not anti-American enough.
Secretary of Commerce Charles Sawyer had finally stopped a shipment of oil machinery to Communist-led Rumania.
Russia had stepped up its war of nerves against neighboring Iran.
The primary reason for evacuating Americans from China was not fear for their safety but the concern that their adequate diets and large automobiles might trigger anti-American propaganda.
Marquis Childs tells of the Republicans perhaps having blessings in disguise for which they could be thankful on Thanksgiving, despite the resounding loss of both the Presidency and the Congress in the elections.
They were rid of isolationist Congressman Harold Knutson of Minnesota, House Ways & Means chairman. Gone, too , were former RNC chairman, Congressman Carroll Reece of Tennessee, Senator Curly Brooks of Illinois, Senator Henry Dworshak of Idaho, and others, all of a conservative, Old Guard type. The voters had plainly rejected that style of politics, giving the Republicans a chance for a fresh start with new leadership.
In Illinois, Paul Douglas had defeated Senator Brooks, and Adlai Stevenson had defeated Governor Dwight Green in the gubernatorial race. Both Messrs. Green and Brooks had been in the isolationist Chicago Tribune stable; both had lost badly to their opponents, by more than a half million votes each.
Senator Raymond Baldwin of Connecticut had sent a memorandum to Mr. Reece in May, 1947 expressing his concern over the Old Guard direction of the 80th Congress and its signal for potential GOP defeat in 1948. He recommended legislating in such a way as to appeal to independent voters.
Mr. Childs believes that the Senator's prophetic words in 1947 were even more applicable presently, and that Senator Baldwin was one of the progressive leaders to whom the Republicans could now look with thanks.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop discuss the method by which Moscow funded the Communist parties of Western Europe, as revealed during the recent French coal strike, now ended. The Soviets owned the Commercial Bank of Northern Europe in Paris and through it had funneled $100,000 per day to the Communist Party in France, in support of the Communist-led coal strike, planned to bring French recovery to a halt.
The money came from taxes on Soviet miners and from Soviet satellites. The donations were not by Soviet largess but with the goal in mind of having the Communist Party in France conduct rotating strikes to disrupt and cripple recovery.
While the coal strike was somewhat justified by the depressed economic conditions in France which put the squeeze on the miners, it also represented a major intrusion by the Soviets into the internal affairs of France.
A letter writer pleads for help for the women, wives, and mothers of alcoholics. She wants some of the ABC profits devoted to rehabilitation of alcoholics.
The editors note that Tom Fesperman, in his two-part series during the week on alcoholism, had called attention to the need to treat it as a disease.
A piece from the High Point Enterprise finds the B&O Railroad hiring experts to relate its timetables, press releases, etc., in simple, readable English, thus returning to the "famous old ideal of terse railroad language: 'Off again. On again. Gone again. Finnegan.'"
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