Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that at the U.N. the
previous day, the United States, acting through Ambassador Warren
Austin, proposed to abandon the Palestine partition plan approved by
the General Assembly the previous November 29, stirring controversy
among Jews and in Britain. The proposal called for a temporary
trusteeship over the Holy Land. In response, the Jews of Palestine
were likely to declare a separate Jewish state, leaving the U.N. to
ignore it or recognize it. Arabs hailed the reversal in U.S. stance
as a victory against Zionism. The Arab League said that it might
agree to a short trusteeship and might even reach agreement with the
Jews, but would not agree to indefinite postponement of independence
for Palestine.
Britain stated that it would evacuate its troops from
Palestine no later than August 1, confirming through Commons the end
of the mandate on May 15.
Meanwhile, violence continued in Jerusalem as Palm Sunday
approached, commemorating the entry of Jesus to the city. Thirty people
were killed the previous day and more this date.
The U.S., Britain, and France proposed the return of Trieste
to Italy via revision of the Italian treaty, from its current status as an
international territory under U.N. protection. The move was seen as
necessary to fulfill the goal of allowing the territory to become
democratic. According to the three-power declaration, Yugoslavia had already
incorporated that portion of Trieste occupied by Yugoslav troops, primarily the rural zone. An additional
complication impelling the proposal was that there had been an
impasse on the Security Council regarding selection of a governor
for Trieste.
The move appeared strategically timed to appeal to Italian
voters in advance of the April 18 elections.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee postponed until Monday
action on the proposed 570 million dollars of aid to China. The
Committee approved the proposed 275 million of additional aid to
Turkey and Greece. The House Foreign Affairs Committee had approved
the bill on China, reserving 150 million for military aid.
The House was expected to begin debate on ERP Tuesday,
following the unanimous approval the day before by the Foreign
Affairs Committee of a unified aid package of 6.205 billion dollars, inclusive of the aid to Turkey, Greece, and China.
Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon stated that he would support
the Republican tax cutting measure of 4.8 billion dollars, leaving
little doubt that it would pass on Monday, when it was scheduled to
come to a vote. Some Democrats had also expressed support. Senator
Morse had voted against the back to back identical tax cut bills of the previous summer,
both vetoed by the President and sustained. Republican Senator William Langer
of North Dakota, who also had voted against the two previous bills,
likewise indicated his support of the new bill.
The death toll reached more than 50 in a nine-state area hit
by a series of tornadoes the previous day, stretching from Texas to
New York, leaving more than 300 injured and several hundred
homeless. The storms hit hardest in Illinois near St. Louis, in Macoupin
County, where 41 were killed.
Ten miles from Somerset, Pa.,—near the location of the
September 11, 2001 crash of the second hijacked plane bound for
Washington, believed designated to target the Capitol, commandeered
bravely by passengers and sent into the ground—, at least five
persons were killed in a mid-air explosion of a two-motored
transport and crash into a mountain near the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
More victims were possible, according to police.
In Boston, a drunken gunman at the Charles Liquor Mart
offered customers bargain prices on merchandise while his accomplice
held the owner in a back room. He then made the owner wait on four
customers and refuse payment. They got away with $300 after a half
hour in the store.
In Charlotte, police were still looking for the accomplice of
the 20-year old man who had admitted to robbing a prominent local
attorney as the latter emerged with his winnings from a craps game
at 3:30 a.m. the previous day. The man under arrest claimed that his accomplice had
shot the attorney in the neck and beat him up, that he had nothing
to do with the violence.
Sports editor Ray Howe provides a preview of the upcoming
Gate City Golf Tournament in Greensboro, subsequently the GGO, to
commence the following week.
In Madison Square Garden in Kansas City the previous night,
Kansas State beat Wyoming 58 to 48 and Baylor nipped Washington 64
to 62 in the remaining quarterfinal games of the N.C.A.A.
Tournament.
This night, in Madison Square Garden, Holy Cross would
contest Kentucky, and in Kansas City, Baylor would vie against
Kansas State, in the overall tournament semifinals, respectively the
East and West finals, the two winners to meet on Tuesday in the
Garden for the championship game.
In New York, stripteaser and writer Gypsy Rose Lee was wed to
artist Julio De Diego.
In Hollywood, the 20th annual Academy Awards presentation
took place with "Gentleman's Agreement" winning Best
Picture. Elia Kazan also won the Best Director award for the film. The other nominees for Best Picture were "Crossfire", "The Bishop's Wife", "Great Expectations", and "Miracle on 34th Street". Loretta Young defied the conventional wisdom that Rosalind Russell would
win the Best Actress award for "Mourning Becomes Electra".
Ms. Young won for her performance in "The Farmer's Daughter".
Ronald Colman got the nod, as anticipated, for Best Actor for his
role in "A Double Life". Many thought, according to a poll
conducted by Daily Variety, however, that Gregory Peck would
win for his performance in "Gentleman's Agreement". The
same poll correctly predicted that Celeste Holm would win the Best
Supporting Actress award for her performance in "Gentleman's
Agreement" and that Edmund Gwenn would win the Best Supporting
Actor award for "Miracle on 34th Street".
Best Original Screenplay went to Sidney Sheldon for "The
Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer". Best Adapted Screenplay was
awarded to George Seaton for "Miracle on 34th Street".
Best Story went to Valentine Davies for the same film.
Best Musical Score went to Alfred Newman for "Mother
Wore Tights" and Best Original Song went to "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah"
from "Song of the South", music by Allie Wrubel and lyric
by Ray Gilbert. Best Dramatic or Comedy Score was awarded to Miklos
Rozsa for "A Double Life"—which probably somehow
dovetailed with "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse", not to mention "Tubby the Tubba" and Pluto, explaining perhaps why, at age four, we once had a napmare about Pluto being in the front yard.
The Best Art Direction and Best Cinematography awards for a
black and white film both went to "Great Expectations",
while the counterpart awards for a color film went to "Black
Narcissus".
"Climbing the Matterhorn" by Irving Allen won for
Best Live Action Short two-reeler.
Newsreel coverage of the event took place for the first time
in its 20-year history.
Also in Los Angeles, a man reading the want-ads wondered what
became of the housing shortage when he saw advertised: "For
rent—3-room apt., all furnished, cry baby welcome."
With temperatures in the high eighties, Tom Schlesinger of
The News tells of spring fever being in the air in Charlotte,
in front of the Public Library and the First Presbyterian Church, as
the first day of spring was a day away.
On the editorial page, "Georgia Editors Fight the Klan" tells of a determined fight by Columbus, Georgia, Ledger-Enquirer
Editor Bryan Collier and the newspaper's president, A. H.
Chapman, against the Georgia Klan. Recently, the Klan had roughed up
three staff members for the newspaper, just as Governor M. E. Thompson
was speaking out against the President's civil rights program on the
premise that the Southern states were doing an adequate job on their
own in enforcing civil rights without Federal intervention. The
incident, as Governor Thompson recognized, undercut his position.
The piece pays kudos to the Ledger-Enquirer for its
brave stand. The three staff members, photographer Joe Talbot and reporters Carlton Johnson and Jim Bellows, later editor of the New York Herald Tribune and associate editor of the Los Angeles Times, had risked their lives to go
undercover to report on the Klan activities, and, when discovered, were beaten, drugged,
and forced into a stance of simulated sodomy, of which pictures were taken,
while being threatened with worse treatment, at one point homicide having been considered through a staged drunken car accident.
In 24 instances the previous year, law enforcement officers
had prevented lynchings in the South. The three reporters ranked alongside
them in courage. It was one reason that lynching in 1947 had been reduced to
only one instance, that of Willie Earle, near Greenville, S.C.
It concludes that, while the mob spirit still lived, the
moral forces in the South were winning. The news from Columbus was
another episode in that long battle to defeat the forces of
prejudice.
As a postscript, the three journalists had been arrested for public drunkenness as a result of the forced imbibing of liquor by the Klan, and, in mid-April, without consulting them, the newspaper's attorneys would forfeit their bonds and give up the fight to defend them, leaving the three with recorded guilty pleas of which none had approved or personally entered, not even having been informed of the hearing date. Had they, incidentally, received any competent legal advice and representation, they could have sought to overturn the pleas by way of either appeal or habeas corpus, on the theories of ineffective assistance of counsel and lack of knowing and intelligent waivers of their rights.
Now, you have a pretty good impression as to what the initiation ceremony of the Klansmen in that tarpaper shack was likely all about. They probably called it the shack of "The Cross'sDeliverance".
"More Frustration in UN" tells of the Chilean
delegate to the U.N. calling upon the Security Council to
investigate the Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia, at the urging
of the Czech delegate, and the Security Council voting 9 to 2 to
take up the measure. The piece finds it another example of the U.N.
being used as a sounding board for the East-West dispute, in a way
which would only highlight the differences and have a greater
demoralizing effect on the West than on Russia, without it likely
accomplishing anything positive. It was another reason for America
to gird its defenses.
"Another Weapon Against Reds" finds the President
in his Wednesday speech to have advocated giving military aid to the
nations of Western Europe, in addition to economic aid. It was a
message to Stalin that if Russia continued its expansionist policy
into Western Europe, it would be met by force. That would take care
of "external aggression", but it remained to determine
what would prevent occurrence of internal coups of the type in
Czechoslovakia.
It appeared that forms of dictatorship to keep Communists out
of the cabinets of Western Europe would be the only means to
forestall such internal takeovers. The returning strength of General
De Gaulle in France was viewed as reflecting that belief. Moves had
also been made in Italy to ban the Communists. Such a move toward rightist
dictatorship, however, would be unpopular and probably would produce
violence.
A piece from the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, titled
"Soilicide in America", tells of the word being coined by
Congressman Ben Jensen of Iowa at the convention of Soil District
Supervisors to characterize the attitude of Americans toward soil
conservation. A bill before Congress, sponsored by Congressman
Harold Cooley of North Carolina, would eliminate the Soil
Conservation Service and transfer its functions to the Extension
Division of the Agriculture Department and to state extension
services. Its actual purpose was to perpetuate wasteful and
inefficient soil subsidies.
The Jensen bill was better, proposing to concentrate soil
conservation functions in the Service and to establish a new land
policy to permit acceleration of conservation. The figures showed
that the country was losing the battle to conserve its arable soil,
with only 24 million acres under soil conservation methods in 1947.
Drew Pearson informs that the President had not received well
the statement of advice from former Secretary of State James Byrnes,
advising a policy of action rather than mere objection to Soviet
expansion. One aide said that if Mr. Byrnes had been tougher during
his 1945-47 tenure at State, then the problems presently extant
would not be so bad. The general consensus was that he should have
cleared his statement first with the State Department. The President
believed that Mr. Byrnes had practically sold the country out to the
Soviets in December, 1945. He now believed that Mr. Byrnes was
seeking to assume national leadership of the party to appeal to the
Southern revolters and grab the Democratic nomination.
Mr. Pearson notes that in fall, 1946, Mr. Byrnes, as
Secretary, had enunciated a "get tough" policy with
Russia, which led to the contrary statement by Secretary of Commerce
Henry Wallace, leading to his firing after Mr. Byrnes insisted that
one of the two had to leave. The President would not have fired Mr.
Wallace otherwise, having approved the Wallace statement before he
issued it.
He next provides several examples of ordinary citizens
extending hands of friendship into Europe, including initiation of
exchanges of letters of friendship.
Congressman Mike Kerwin of Ohio said at the Democratic
executive committee meeting that big business had been saved by FDR
during the early days of the New Deal and now they repaid the favor
by attacking the Democrats.
Some caucusing Democrats supported the Republican tax cut
bill of 4.7 billion dollars, including Senators Walter George of
Georgia and Edwin Johnson of Colorado. Senators Tom Connally of
Texas and Joseph O'Mahoney of Wyoming were adamantly opposed.
The Italian people, to show their appreciation for the
Friendship Train food contributed by Americans in the fall, had
financed a film, showing the gratitude of the Italians, shortly to
begin general release in the U.S.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop inform that Secretary of State
Marshall and his advisers believed that Premier Stalin had set in
motion forces beyond his control in the expansionist policy followed
since the end of the war, the reason Secretary Marshall found the
situation "very, very serious".
If the Communists gained control of Italy in the April 18
elections, then U.S. aid under ERP would evaporate, as expressly
confirmed the previous day by Secretary Marshall, leaving a hungry
nation which could only be dealt with by dictatorial force,
eventuating in civil war. Such a war could easily erupt into general
war between East and West. If the Communists gained as much as 40
percent of the seats in the election, then they could make it
impossible to form a non-Communist government, prompting the weak
president of Italy to call on the Communist leader Palmiro Togliatti
to form a government. He would fill the undersecretaryships with
young, energetic Communists who could then slowly take over,
reminiscent of the Czech coup of the previous month. If Italy were
to fall to the Communists, then so could all of Europe and the
Middle East.
But the President had made it clear to Moscow in his
Wednesday speech that for the Communists to take over Italy would
carry with it the inherent risk of war. Yet, Stalin could not reel
in the forces set in motion, being political rather than military.
He could not simply call on Togliatti to halt the advance. And to do
so in any event would undermine Soviet power throughout the
non-Communist sphere, compromising the Soviet ability to wreck ERP,
its enunciated goal. That in turn would compromise the Soviet empire
built up in Eastern Europe. It was the trap into which Stalin had
placed himself with the politically aggressive policy.
Marquis Childs comments that the President's speech should
convince even the tough-minded men of the Politburo at the Kremlin
that the U.S. would not tolerate any aggression into Western Europe.
Meanwhile, both Henry Wallace and Senator Taft, at opposite
ends of the political spectrum, equally had their heads buried in
the sand. Senator Taft was engaging in the same isolationist
rhetoric which he uttered leading up to Pearl Harbor, that there was
no threat to U.S. security. Both men had significant support for
their views, even if smaller than the isolationists during 1940-41.
It was important for the Congress to act quickly in passing
ERP and to reinstitute at least the machinery for the temporary
draft of 19 and 20-year old young men. Implementing universal
military training was unlikely in the 80th Congress and was probably
not wise in any event for the need of so much available manpower to
make it work. It was also not likely that Congress would enact a
draft, with only 235,000 men needed to fill the manpower gap for the
armed forces. But what was necessary was to set up registration for
the draft so that induction could begin quickly if emergently made
necessary.
A letter writer favors the North Carolina Republican Party
determination to have its Congressional candidates selected by the
voters rather by the party convention, as in the state Democratic
Party.
A letter from the Navy officer in charge of recruiting in
Raleigh thanks the newspaper for its support of the recruiting
effort, which had attracted 605 men during the first two months of
the year.
