Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that a Jewish state was
expected to be declared by the Jewish National Council in Palestine
this date or the following day. Tel Aviv would be the capital and it
would be defended by Jewish arms. David Ben-Gurion, head of the
Jewish Agency, stated Saturday that a Jewish state had already come
into being. The reversal of the U.S. stance on partition at the
U.N., announced Friday, had accelerated the course of action.
There appeared little evidence of Jewish resentment to the
change of U.S. policy, as most had reconciled themselves to the
failure of partition given the violence which had taken 2,000 lives
since November 29, when partition was approved by the General
Assembly.
A Jewish truck loaded with explosives penetrated the Arab
section of Haifa and then detonated, causing many casualties.
Haganah reported that twenty Arabs and four Jews were killed the
previous night in an Arab attack on a Jewish settlement in southern
Palestine.
In Germany, the Russians walked out of a meeting of the
Allied Control Council on Saturday and then announced that they
would not attend scheduled meetings of the four-power government
structure of Germany. General Lucius Clay, U.S. Military Governor,
said that despite the Russian boycott, the U.S. would remain in
Berlin. He made the statement in response to questions anent
Russian-controlled newspaper editorials urging the other three
powers to abandon Berlin. During this month, Russians were in
control of the meetings, but the rotating chair would go to the
Americans the following month.
Yugoslavia protested the manner of the proposal of the three
Western powers to return Trieste to Italy, stating that Yugoslavia
as an ally should have first been consulted and that the timing,
just in advance of the April 18 Italian elections, made the proposal
appear propagandistic. Yugoslavia did not, however, register
objection per se to the proposal, but said that the change was not
in the interest of the Italian people or that part of Europe. Italy
accepted the proposal. Diplomats in Italy said that they believed
Russia had been planning a similar proposal to that of the West,
that the West had simply beaten them to the punch.
Congressman Charles Eaton of New Jersey, chairman of the
House Foreign Affairs Committee, declared that a third world war was
"not very remote". He said that the prevailing view on his
Committee was that all of the aid appropriated for ERP was
essentially military aid to prevent conquest. He urged that the
Rules Committee send the ERP bill to the floor forthwith for urgent
passage. The House bill included the aid to Turkey, Greece, and
China and so amounted to 6.205 billion dollars for the first year.
The Appropriations Committee recommended an additional 55 million
dollars in provisional aid to Italy, Austria, and France while ERP
was being set up.
Dr. Karl Compton, chairman of the President's committee which
recommended universal military training, testified to the Senate
Armed Services Committee that time was "running out" for
military preparedness in case of an emergency and that both the
President's proposed temporary draft and UMT ought be implemented by
the Congress.
Senate confreres seeking to reconcile the differing House and
Senate bills on rent control extension saw a problem in the local
rule provision in the House bill, allowing local rent boards to
determine controls. The Senate was firmly against local rule and
insisted that the House confreres therefore had to compromise the
provision. Some Senators speculated that the provision might be a
deliberate stumbling block to prevent the extension.
Near Kelso, Washington, in the vicinity of Mt. St. Helens, a
search was being conducted for a lost C-47 transport plane which was
last seen near Yacolt the previous afternoon. The plane, carrying
eight persons, was bound for Portland from the Air Force base at
Fairfield, California.
In Mt. Airy, N.C., a woman and her eighteen-year old daughter
were shot to death the previous night at 9:00, following a quarrel
between the mother and a local barber, held under guard at the
hospital where he was being treated for pistol wounds to his face
after an attempted suicide, albeit not seriously injured. He had
been charged with two counts of first degree murder. His name was
not Floyd.
A surviving daughter, 16, told of the fracas following a
daylong discussion between her mother and the barber over whether
they should stop seeing one another. They had been going together
for a year. Both had been drinking. He entered the bedroom where the
mother and both daughters were, asked the daughters to leave and as
they did so, they heard a shot, which had hit their mother in the
heart. The older daughter fled the house, screaming, and the barber
followed, shot her as she crossed the street, killing her almost
instantly. The barber then turned the gun on himself.
Mayberry is not always as advertised.
Dick Young of The News tells of plans being laid for a
new technical institute in Charlotte under the sponsorship of the
Extension Division of North Carolina State. Training would be
provided in electrical, radio, and telephone repair, metalworking,
woodworking, sheet metal, automotive repair, and other such crafts.
In London, The People speculated that Princess
Elizabeth might become a mother in October. No comment came from
Buckingham Palace. They were close: Prince Charles would be born
November 14, short six days of being a year from the marriage
between Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip.
Honi soit qui mal y pense.
On Saturday night in Kansas City, Baylor topped Kansas State
60 to 52, and in New York at Madison Square Garden, Kentucky beat
Holy Cross by the same score, in the N.C.A.A. Tournament semifinals,
determining, respectively, the Western and Eastern champions. The
following night in the Garden, therefore, Kentucky would face Baylor
for the national championship. Holy Cross would meet Kansas State in
the consolation match.
On the editorial page, "American Realism on Palestine" finds the about-face by the U.S. on the Palestine partition plan,
favoring its scrapping and creation of a trusteeship in its stead,
to put U.S. security and foreign interests first, ahead of practical
politics. It would enable the U.S. to work itself out of a difficult
position with respect to Russia, as the Government did not want to
risk giving the Soviets a foothold in the troubled Holy Land by
sending an international police force there to maintain the peace.
The Government was concerned also that Arab resentment over the plan
would weaken U.S. positions in Africa and the Middle East, the
latter vital for its oil.
Some called it a sell-out and another Munich. But given the
world crisis, as set forth by the President and Secretary of State
Marshall, a real war in every respect save the shooting, it was
necessary to eliminate the partition plan and maintain U.S.
interests. The President thus should be credited with courage even
though taking a politically unpopular stance domestically.
The other justification was the impracticality of
implementing the plan. The trusteeship held out hope at least for
eventual reconciliation between Arab resentment and the
establishment of a Jewish homeland. Yet, the trusteeship also raised
all of the problems inherent in the partition plan. Many would
charge that it only enabled America and the Arabs to dictate policy
in Palestine.
Against the change in policy was the terrible plight of the
Jews, leaving them worse off than before the U.N. passage of
partition the previous November 29. The change in U.S. position
undermined foreign confidence in American integrity and in the U.N.
itself.
Subsequent events might prove the change in policy wise but
that remained to be seen. Should it backfire, then America would
have egg on its face for following the expedient course when the
uncompromising position was most needed in the face of a foreign
threat.
"Gambling Draws the Bandits" urges the break-up of
gambling operations in and around Charlotte as they were drawing a
corrupt element to the city in search of "easy money", as
described by the youth under arrest for the shooting and robbery of
a prominent local attorney on Thursday night as the latter emerged
from a craps game. The defendant, who admitted his part in the
crime, but said that his accomplice from Georgia did the shooting,
hailed from Maine. That such youths were coming from distant places
to Charlotte in search of "easy money" in a growing city
meant that its reputation was spreading along the grapevine,
necessitating the eradication of the attractive nuisance afforded by
such underground gambling.
"Cut Taxes for a Day, Anyway" comments on Senator
Walter George of Georgia, ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance
Committee, stating his support for the Republican 4.8 billion dollar
tax cut on the basis that it would be better to cut taxes for a day
even if war had to be declared the following day and the tax cut
reversed. It demonstrated that the old rule was in play, cutting
taxes when in doubt. At least it would communicate to the world that
the country was confident that things were not as bleak as pictured
by the leaders.
Drew Pearson tells of Russia being obsessed with the
capability of the U.S. to drop an atomic bomb on Soviet cities. The
points from which such an attack might be launched were Japan,
Alaska, England, Italy, Greece, Iceland, and Saudi Arabia. One plane
would be intercepted by the mass of Russian fighters protecting its
borders. But seven separate missions from each base, launched
simultaneously, might make interception difficult. Thus, the Soviet
strategy appeared aimed at presently taking as much territory as
possible to make such an attack unfeasible. It explained why there
was a squeeze play on Denmark and Norway by the Russians and why,
reportedly, the Soviets were reaching out as far as Iceland. If
Russia could successfully take over Italy, and hence Greece and
Saudi Arabia, it would only have Japan and Alaska about which to be
concerned as a source of attack. Russia could then amass its
interceptors in Siberia.
A strange omission in the Truman address to Congress the
previous week on foreign policy was air power.
He notes that the present cold war positions might not be
extant had Russia accepted the U.S. offer to share in atomic energy
on condition of permitting international inspections.
He next informs that the President had, after three months,
finally found a man to become head of the Civil Aeronautics Board,
Joseph O'Connell, former Treasury Department counsel. He had been a
lawyer with the firm of deceased O. Max Gardner, former
Undersecretary of Treasury and Ambassador to Britain, who died just
as he was preparing to sail to London to take his post in February,
1947.
Secretary of State Marshall told Republican Congressmen that
America could not stand for Russia to take over any more countries,
but deferred to the President the question whether that meant war.
He added that the Russians made money by taking over countries, as
they took things out, while America put things in, costing it money
to take over a country.
He avoided a question on why the country was so interested in
stopping Communism in Europe but not in China.
He said that the draft was an immediate necessity and
universal military training, a long-range requirement.
He refused to answer a question whether the Administration
policy was a cry of "wolf", but said it would be better to
have the wolf in America than in Europe.
Marquis Childs tells of two incidents in the campaign of
Henry Wallace which had caused question of his honesty. One was his
statement the previous week that the takeover by the Communists in
Czechoslovakia had come in reaction to an attempt by U.S. Ambassador
Laurence Steinhardt to orchestrate a right wing coup against the
coalition Government in Prague. Mr. Childs points out that
Ambassador Steinhardt had been away from Czechoslovakia from
November 24 until February 19, two days after the start of the
takeover, which concluded February 20. He had known nothing of the
internal politics or the attempt of the takeover, as betrayed by his
earlier statement, a few days before the crisis, that democracy was
so well rooted in the country that a Communist takeover by force was
not feasible.
Mr. Wallace's statement served only to give rationale to the
Communists and thus encourage war.
The second incident was his having stated that capitalist
pressure from America had caused the British Labor Government to
postpone indefinitely nationalization of the steel industry. MP
Jennie Lee, wife of Health Minister Aneurin Bevin, reacted by
calling the statement untrue, that the Labor Government was moving
forward with nationalization of coal, gas, and electricity, then
steel, the latter of necessity awaiting the full nationalization of
the other three industries. The effort of Mr. Wallace
appeared to be to undermine Labor confidence in the Marshall Plan as
a capitalist ploy, to induce the Labor Government to reject it.
These statements of Mr. Wallace encouraged war, the
antithesis of his stated goal. It was possible that he was blinded
by his own ambition and the encouragement of Communists and fellow
travelers in his camp. But to follow him, Mr. Childs opines, was to
be deaf, dumb, and blind.
Samuel Grafton again defines terms. "Atomic science"
had nothing to do with the recent outbreak of Republican competitors
in the presidential race.
"Confidence" was favored by conservatives, was
higher under President Truman, who got along with no one, than under
FDR when he was friendly with Russia during the war. It was at its
highest level in the summer of 1929 under President Hoover, just
before the October Crash. It nearly vanished under the New Deal when
everybody was making a living again. Electing a Republican would, no
doubt, cause confidence to soar to new heights.
"The Swing of the Pendulum" was the theory that
after a few years of one kind of administration, the voters swung to
another, opposite in ideology.
"Dignity" was an important personal quality,
often confused with respectability. The bipartisan foreign policy
had respectability but not necessarily dignity. Dignity would
require making peace at once.
"Important Advance in Foreign Policy" referred to a
decision of government to spend twice as much the following year to
describe a policy which did not work the previous year.
The Charleston News & Courier, in a quote, warns
of armed force in South Carolina to prevent implementation of the
President's civil rights program, should it seek to integrate public
schools and colleges, hotels and clubs. The Federal Government would
need armed forces prepared to "wage a war of extermination"
against "self-respecting white people".
That might not have been a bad idea in the long-run, saving
the country a whole lot of grief over the years at the expense of a
few dumb rednecks who did not deserve to live in this country in the
first place.
A letter writer disagrees with "Taft and the War Danger"
in laying at the doorstep of Senator Robert Taft the present danger
of war. He accuses The News of being the reverse of the
isolationist Chicago Tribune, finding it to have belittled
the bipartisan foreign policy, found no real Russian threat, opposed
the Truman Doctrine and the "get tough" policy toward
Russia enunciated by former Secretary of State James Byrnes in
September, 1946, and given editorial sympathy to Henry Wallace.
The editors set the record straight, contrary to the beliefs
of the writer, on the positions taken by The News, state that the newspaper had pointed out the dangers in the Truman Doctrine, criticized Senator Taft's isolationism, including his stance against the Truman Doctrine and his desire to limit ERP, opposed Henry Wallace's advocacy for appeasement, supported ERP, UMT, and the limited temporary draft, endorsed creation of the Western European Union of France, Britain and the Benelux countries, editorialized in favor of increased resort to the U.N., and generally sought to avoid whipping war hysteria while not minimizing the East-West crisis.
A letter from P.C. Burkholder answers a previous writer
critical of his stance against the March of Dimes, finding it
hypocritical and spending more on its staff than fighting polio. Mr. Burkholder
tells of Forsyth County being the only county nationwide not
conducting a drive, for the same reasons he had enunciated.
He thinks the dark side of the New Deal ought be told rather
than using FDR's image and a positive presentation of the program as
publicity for the March of Dimes drive.
President Truman, he says, had destroyed 80 million dollars
worth of Irish potatoes in 1947 to keep the prices high, continuing
New Deal policies.