The Charlotte News
Saturday, November 27, 1948
ONE EDITORIAL
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the U.N. General Assembly voted 47 to 6 to condemn Albania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia for supporting the Communist guerrillas in Greece, the six dissenting votes being of the Soviet bloc nations. Five nations abstained or were absent. By a vote of 43 to 6, the Assembly rejected a Russian resolution that the Greek situation was the result of increased foreign interference in the country. By a vote of 53 to 0, the Assembly adopted a proposal that Greece and its neighbors resolve their differences diplomatically among themselves.
In China, the war had spread over a radius of 100 miles south from Suchow, while fighting within that city had nearly ended. The Government claimed that the Communists had lost 230,000 troops in the 19-day battle for Suchow while Government losses were pegged at 95,000 men. The piece notes that typically the numbers were distorted by the Chinese.
Nationalist General Fu Tso-Yi was preparing to do battle with 280,000 Communist troops in Hopei Province, where Peiping and Tientsin were the prizes. His headquarters said that if the Reds did not attack, they would engage them in battle.
Madame Chiang Kai-Shek was preparing for her visit to the U.S. to ask for aid for her husband's ailing regime. No specific date had yet been set.
Greek Premier Themistokles Sophoulis, 88, was reported near death in Athens. Doctors said that he might last another day. Doctors had offered him an egg in the morning but he said that he preferred a beer, a request the doctors honored.
Representative Clarence Cannon of Missouri, to become chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, promised a "Spartan economy" in the 81st Congress, as the Government budget would be trimmed.
In Atlanta, KKK Grand Dragon Dr.
Samuel Green
Dr. Green, a dentist, said that Mr. Mallard had been disturbing church services by knocking loudly on the door to the church and demanding that cars outside blocking the road be moved. Dr. Green said that his information was that Mr. Mallard was a "bad Negro". But, he said, no robed men were involved and the Klan had nothing to do with "this job".
It was obviously a church which subscribed to the belief, "knock and the door shall open, but we shall not be moved, especially not for bad Negroes."
Also in Atlanta, a man was found by police sitting in his stalled car on a railroad crossing, oblivious to the horns of six trains backed up. He was charged with public drunkenness.
Discussion of legislative proposals for occupational compensation of firemen suffering from heart attacks and other ailments would be held at the North Carolina Fire Chiefs Association meeting in Charlotte on December 13.
Also in Charlotte, a hotel night clerk told police that he had accidentally shot a man through the chest, thinking that the pistol he was showing to him was not loaded. Though the victim's condition was serious, there were no charges filed as the victim agreed that the shooting was an accident.
In Birmingham, Ala., a three-year old wanted a two-legged duck to replace the four-legged one which had attracted so many onlookers that it was given to a local zoo.
In Ava, Ill., a high school principal warned the students of the school that if they continued the fad of inducing blackouts, they would be expelled. In Chicago, Dr. Morris Fishbein described the fad as evidence of "mass psychological disturbances which occur among adolescents from time to time." The report instructs precisely how the students induced the blackouts, should you wish to try it for yourself.
One student had done so fifteen times until she lapsed into unconsciousness for two hours and had to be brought out of the state with a stimulant, at which point she became hysterical. She said that she had dreamed while in the state that she was being chased by a formless monster. Her friend had fainted and undergone convulsions during the unconsciousness. The principal had convened a school assembly to witness the girls being revived.
News sportswriter Furman Bisher tells of the UNC football team slated to meet Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl on New Year's Day, provided that both teams would win their games this date—as both would, North Carolina beating Virginia 34 to 12, Oklahoma defeating Oklahoma A&M 19 to 15. UNC was 9-0-1, tying William & Mary, while Oklahoma was 9-1, losing only to Santa Clara. UNC had also been invited to the Orange Bowl, but the school administrators, coaches and players had voted to accept the Sugar Bowl invitation.
A fan who had seen both teams play predicted that if they met, Oklahoma would soundly defeat the Tar Heels.
He did not know whereof he spoke, must have been drinking with some of his confederates waving the Stars 'n' Bars.
In Compton, California, the merchants had enlisted the Compton College football players to prevent the entry to stores of female shoppers on December 6 so that male shoppers would have a chance to shop, unmolested by the ladies.
On the editorial page, "Preview of the 1949 General Assembly" regards the legislative agenda on tap for the coming session. We shall get to it soon enough and so you can read the forecast on your own if you are eager to find out what will be transpiring.
It says that the new Legislature was one of the most "bombastic" in decades because of the presence of large numbers of former supporters of State Treasurer Charles Johnson in the gubernatorial primary, loser to Governor-elect Kerr Scott. The new Governor would need to learn to say no to many pressure groups.
Improvement of roads and schools were primary objectives of the new Governor, but he might have a hard battle in the new Legislature.
The Legislature would also consider a proposal for a statewide referendum on liquor to supplant county-by-county option.
The Medical Care Commission would also receive legislative support for building more hospitals in rural areas, even if it meant delaying the four-year medical school at the University.
State mental institutions would receive attention again.
Many believed that the automobile safety inspection program would be ended because of it involving too much red tape for motorists.
Also to be considered was the fate of the closed union shop.
The editorial is signed "W.D.S.", unexplained and remaining a mystery. It obviously was not the News Raleigh correspondent, Lynn Nisbet. Nor was it anyone on the editorial staff of the newspaper.
A summary of a piece from the Congressional Quarterly tells of lobbying organizations lining up in support of giving military aid to Europe. Only the National Council for Prevention of War, of the 14 major lobbying groups, had firmly opposed it. The same group was the only one to favor closer relations with Franco's Spain.
Drew Pearson tells of a letter from Secretary of State Marshall to Secretary of Defense Forrestal objecting to the latter's proposal for a 24 billion dollar defense budget, posited on war being imminent when Secretary Marshall was working to bring about peace. Secretary Marshall found the proposed budget therefore dishonest and said that he would support a 15 billion dollar budget, but not the greater amount.
When French journalist Pertinax stopped British U.N. delegate Hector McNeil in the hallway at the Paris U.N. meeting and accused the British of making the same mistake in recommending return of the Ruhr to Germany as had Neville Chamberlain in 1938 at Munich, when he said that Hitler had really been a gentleman, had helped him put on his overcoat, Mr. McNeil retorted that it may have been Hitler who helped him with his overcoat but it was the British people who handed him his hat.
Senator Claude Pepper of Florida and Democratic machine head Jake Arvey of Chicago had fought hard against the nomination of President Truman, but once the nomination was secured, they both fought just as hard for his re-election. The political dopesters had predicted that Florida and Illinois would be carried by Governor Dewey, but the opposite had occurred. Senator Pepper had even worked on the national scene for the President, considered at the time a form of political suicide. It was why the President, while in Key West, had visits from both men.
GOP Congressman Cliff Clevenger of Ohio, who had labeled the President the "Missouri jackass", had now implicitly called General Eisenhower a traitor for aiding the Russians in taking Berlin at the end of the war, as he condemned those who had allowed it, General Eisenhower having said that it was his decision to permit it.
Mr. Pearson pays tribute to Wilmington, N.C., for flying to Wilmington the victims of the smog cloud overhanging Donors, Pa., which had rendered several residents ill.
Undersecretary of State Robert Lovett wanted Averell Harriman to be named Secretary of State and John Foster Dulles Undersecretary.
A Los Angeles family who had planned to vote for Governor Dewey finally changed their minds and voted for the President after their landlord goaded them by stating that their $55 per month rent would go to $100 if Mr. Dewey were elected. Mr. Pearson remarks that it was what the real estate lobby had done for Mr. Dewey in many places.
Marquis Childs discusses the rumors of large contributions of big oil to the Dixiecrats during the presidential campaign, in the hope that they might cause the defeat of the President and his continued advocacy of preserving tidelands oil for the Federal Government, per the ruling of the Supreme Court insofar as the tidelands of California. The Republican platform had stood for turning the oil back to the states. National security advisers uniformly had stressed the need for preservation for the military of these tidelands as oil reserves in the event of war, as much of the nation's reserves had been depleted by World War II.
Mr. Childs advocates investigation to find out whether the rumors were true. While the Dixiecrat books did not reveal overly large contributions from big oil and the party had received also major contributions from the utility interests, the books being kept by the parties generally were increasingly becoming a fiction.
Several oil companies were drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, technically not covered by the Supreme Court ruling, though Attorney General Tom Clark had threatened to bring a case regarding this area.
Mr. Childs asserts that the public had a right to know what was being done with its oil. If the oil reserves in the Middle East were of critical importance to national security, the oil in the country's backyard was even more so. He recommends legislative and judicial action to secure these tidelands in every region of the country.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop tell of the President including Undersecretary of State Robert Lovett, reputed to have been disloyal during the campaign, in his expression of high continuing confidence in State Department personnel, in an effort to keep Secretary of State Marshall aboard until the Berlin crisis was resolved.
The Alsops state that there was no truth to the rumors regarding Mr. Lovett or that Secretary of Defense James Forrestal had refused to contribute to the President's campaign. The advisers to the President who bore these rumors were after the jobs of Mr. Lovett and Mr. Forrestal. During the campaign, thanks in large part to adviser Clark Clifford, the President maintained these rumors in proper perspective and did not act precipitously in response.
The President had named John Foster Dulles acting chief U.N. delegate in the absence of Secretary Marshall and chief delegate Warren Austin, despite the belief that Mr. Dulles had used information gleaned through the bipartisan foreign policy to help Governor Dewey during the campaign regarding his position statement favoring return of the Italian colonies to Italy, to attract Italian-American votes. But the President had ignored advice to appoint Eleanor Roosevelt or someone else from the U.N. delegation as the acting chief delegate and appointed Mr. Dulles, rising above personal vanity and pettiness.
Many of the President's advisers had counseled essentially that he be a king, in the wake of the resounding victory. He had listened instead to his own good sense and the wise advice of others who merely counseled that he be a President.
A piece from the Louisville Courier-Journal applauds the University of Illinois physical education department for its new course in fishing. For once one attained distinction after college, the person had to know how to act and how to dress for the part, which the course would provide, as the piece explains.
A piece from the Jackson (Miss.) Daily News tells of a neighborhood driver who could get along with only two wheels as he consistently used only two to round corners.
A piece from the Greenville (Tenn.) Sun tells of a young woman telling her father of the latest jazz record, finding it wonderful. The father thought it compared to a collision between a wagonload of empty milk cans and a farm wagon filled with ducks which he had once witnessed.
A letter from the pastor of Duncan Memorial Baptist Church in Charlotte recommends It Does Add Up by Elmer Hilker, as a book explaining how religion works. He finds it helpful to ministers as well as the lay public.
Framed Edition
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