The Charlotte News
Thursday, March 25, 1948
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that President Truman proposed that the U.N. call Arab and Jewish leaders together in a conference aimed at ending the violence in Palestine. U.S. Ambassador Warren Austin would convey the message of the President to the Arab and Jewish leaders.
The President explained to a press conference that the reversal of the U.S. position on the partition plan, passed by the General Assembly the previous November 29, was made because the plan could not be enforced without sending U.S. troops to the Holy Land.
The President warned of violence and bloodshed taking over in Palestine after May 15 when the British intended to abandon their mandate and evacuate all British troops. The trusteeship suggested by the U.S. was designed to maintain order but, he advised, would not necessarily require U.S. troops.
Secretary of State Marshall stated at a press conference that the U.S. would view further refusal by Russia to cooperate in the Allied Control Council in Germany as efforts against unification of Germany. He gave full authority to General Lucius Clay, American military governor, and endorsed the refusal by General Clay to recognize the Communist-backed German People's Congress in the American zone.
Secretary of Defense James Forrestal urged the Senate Armed Services Committee to adopt immediate draft legislation for men between 19 and 25, exempting veterans, to meet the manpower needs of the armed forces. He also urged adoption of universal military training. The added size of the military which he proposed, an additional 345,500 men, would require three billion dollars more for the military budget, supplemental to the eleven billion already sought. The new military strength would be about 1.4 million men. Only 220,000 of the potential 3.6 million draftees would likely be inducted. Another 1.1 million would be draft eligible. The new strength, he said, was to assure the security of the United States, though he stressed that there was no immediate prospect for war.
Glenn Martin, airplane manufacturer, stated that the Navy had perfected a guided missile which could search out an enemy ship and destroy it halfway across the ocean by means of a homing device. A radioactive cloud which could destroy anything it touched, albeit subject to backfire in unfavorable wind conditions, had also been developed, along with new bacterial weapons and a far more powerful atomic bomb than that dropped on Hiroshima. He said that the outcome of a new war would likely be determined in 65 days.
Scientists of the Atomic Bomb Casualty Survey Committee found no residual effect of radioactivity in Hiroshima following the atomic bomb blast of August 6, 1945. They said that speculation that the area would be deadly for 80 years was false. But whether there were genetic changes to the population from the bomb could not be found for another eight years. Any which would be discovered, however, would be from the blast itself and not subsequent fallout. The Committee spokesman also said that there were no anomalous growth patterns in vegetation witnessed, as widely reported. He attributed any such anomalies to potash in the soil or ashes of burned buildings and dead organic matter.
Official figures showed 78,150 persons were killed from the Hiroshima bomb, 21.2 percent from radiation. An additional 19,699 persons were injured seriously and 45,000 slightly. All of the radiation deaths and injuries, according to the Committee, were from the blast and not subsequent radiation.
Senator Kenneth Wherry of Nebraska introduced a measure to return atomic control to the Army and abolish the civilian Atomic Energy Commission. Secretary of the Army Kenneth Royall had testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee this date that no changes were necessary or desirable to the civilian agency.
The Congress passed the reconciled rent control extension bill and sent it to the White House for signature. The bill extended controls for a year. The local rule provision of the House version was eliminated in favor of allowing a specially created emergency Federal Court to have final determination of disputes between local rent boards and Federal officials regarding allowed rent increases. The bill eliminated the previous bill's allowance of a 15 percent increase to tenants who signed a one year lease through the calendar year. Tenants who had signed such a lease in 1947 could not be charged another rent increase and their leases would extend until the end of rent control in a year.
Senator Burnet Maybank of South Carolina called on Attorney General Tom Clark to prosecute the persons responsible for permitting shipment of airplane engines to Russia. The President, however, explained that the shipments had been contracted, in many instances, two years earlier and that the Soviet Union was still regarded as a friendly nation. The former Government official who made the contract with Russia said that the State Department had encouraged it. The contract for 40 airplane engines was formed some months prior to May, 1947. Pratt & Whitney denied a contention in Congress that they had shipped motors and parts to Russia since the end of the war. Total U.S. exports to Russia in 1947 amounted to 149.5 million dollars, a drop of 206 million from 1946 when lend-lease and UNRRA aid was still in effect. Of the 1947 total, $421,000 represented airplane parts. The U.S. received from Russia 77 million dollars worth of imports in 1947.
The President said that he would take whatever steps available to him under the law to settle the coal strike. He had, the day before, appointed a fact-finding board, which was scheduled to report back by April 5. At that point, the Justice Department could seek an injunction to end the walkout.
The President was reported calm regarding the revolt against him in the South. The President confirmed Senator Carl Hatch's quote that he had said he would be in the race to the finish and would not withdraw, as had been suggested by some Democrats, including most recently former supporter Senator Lister Hill of Alabama.
The President also predicted that the Democrats would win in November, declaring it as his prophecy, and that those who had left his camp would return, that he would afford them the chance to do so by November.
He must be a psychopath.
In Newark, Ohio, a young man, 20,
cited for contempt, was sentenced the previous afternoon to ten days
in jail, suddenly rose and objected, said that he was not going to
jail, bolted from the courtroom and had not been seen since
In Raleigh, the State Attorney General announced that no statute or decision could be found which fixed the relative responsibilities of the city and county governments in the state with respect to contributions for medical care for the indigent, a subject of controversy between Charlotte and Mecklenburg County regarding their relative contributions for such care at Memorial Hospital. The only requirement was that no discrimination take place in care for the indigent based on residency.
In Darlington, S.C., the Darlington County Council of Farm Women would gather Saturday, April 3, at the Lamar High School for their spring meeting.
On the editorial page, "Unfair to City Taxpayers" comments on the fact that the City paid $52,000 of the annual cost of underwriting charity hospital services while the County paid $28,000. The question of consolidation of the City and County to bring about increased efficiency of services was under study at the Institute of Government in Chapel Hill. The piece hopes that the study would soon conclude, to enable the issue of the proper division of hospital services borne respectively by the City and County to be determined.
The best way to equalize the burden on all taxpayers, ventures the piece, was to make the hospital services available throughout the county and have the County Government foot the entire bill for indigent care.
"Johnson's Blow at ABC System" tells of State Treasurer Charles Johnson, Democratic gubernatorial candidate, having begun to stump in favor of prohibition to gain support for his campaign. He promised to recommend a state-wide liquor referendum if elected. He also had pledged to recommend repeal of the gag rule, whereby legislation could be bottled up in committees, requiring a two-thirds vote of the House to get legislation to the floor after an unfavorable committee recommendation.
But his justification for the latter stance, that the gag rule was undemocratic, ran counter to his stand for the state-wide prohibition referendum, which would nullify, if passed, the votes of 26 of the 100 counties which were wet by democratic choice. Moreover, nullifying the ABC system in these counties would make it more difficult to finance government services.
"Dewey's Brand of 'Diplomacy'" finds contradictory Governor Dewey's pronouncement recommending a "hard-boiled" approach by the Administration to the Soviet Union while also urging more diplomacy be used to resolve the crisis. What he actually said in substance, however, was that there was too much diplomacy and not enough toughness in U.S. foreign policy.
Neither Russia nor the U.S. had evidenced any desire to participate in a treaty, as the relations between the two countries were being determined by military strategists rather than diplomats.
The fact that the President and Secretary of State Marshall had, in their St. Patrick's Day statements, expressed a desire for settlement with the Soviets, appeared to be the basis for Mr. Dewey's criticism. But the Governor, himself, was advocating a policy which represented that for which he criticized the Administration, calling the effort "the last failure of bankrupt diplomacy."
A piece from the
Asheville
Citizen, titled "Federated Nations", tells of Life
Drew Pearson provides the verbatim
transcript of a broadcast he had delivered the previous week,
translated into Italian, to the Italian people as a gesture of good
will in the wake of the December Friendship Train which Mr. Pearson
had conceived and which he accompanied along its journey, as well the
earlier train through France. He tells of the Italian-produced film,
"Thanks, America"
He explains to the Italians the offer of the U.S. to Russia to share the atomic secret provided Russia would agree to international inspections to assure mutual peaceful use, and that Russia had refused. He underscores that the American people genuinely wanted peace and were working sincerely to bring about amicable relations with the former enemy nations of the war. He points out that America had already supplied to Europe thousands of tons of wheat. The Marshall Plan, he assures, was another example of America working for friendship and peace.
He concludes by hoping that after
the April 18 elections, the Italian people would remain free from the
Communist yoke
Marquis Childs discusses the possibilities for the Republican vice-presidential nomination after noting that many were lining up, while few Democrats were now to be found for the post, a reversal of circumstances extant a few weeks earlier when the President was riding high in the polls. Now, no one gave him a chance.
Six Republican Senators were high on
the list of possible nominees, including 1960 vice-presidential
nominee Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. Representative Charles Halleck
The most frequently mentioned Republican team was Senator Arthur Vandenberg for the presidency and former Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen for the vice-presidency.
So, it looks like it will be President Vandenberg and Vice-President Stassen.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop tell of the alliance between a non-Communist liberal candidate and Communist supporters always leading to the same end, the eventual demand by the Communists that the liberal burn his bridges with his old supporters, followed by the deterioration of the honesty and integrity of the candidate.
The Wallace campaign manager had given further evidence of that process by announcing that the associate counsel for the United Electrical Workers, controlled by the Communists, would become the director of veterans and youth work for the campaign. The man had been a member of the Young Communist League, had apparently not changed his positions.
Mr. Wallace had already burned his old liberal bridges and was beginning to show a double standard in honesty. The latter was displayed by his relations with his successor as Secretary of Commerce, Averell Harriman. When Mr. Wallace spoke in Washington a few months earlier, Mr. Harriman had urged Commerce employees to attend his speech to hear the other side. Mr. Wallace, apprised of it, sent a letter of thanks, telling Mr. Harriman that he was a good sport for doing so and that he obviously was a strong believer in civil liberties. But publicly, the former Vice-President continued to assail Mr. Harriman as an imperialist seeking to enrich himself through his Government service and as an enemy to civil liberties. The Alsops posit that this latter position was no doubt dictated by the Communists in the campaign.
In fact, Mr. Harriman believed strongly in civil liberties as evidenced by his tough stand in refusing to provide to HUAC the file on the loyalty investigation of Dr. Edward Condon, director of the Bureau of Standards, and being infuriated by the public claims of HUAC chairman J. Parnell Thomas that Dr. Condon was the chief atomic security risk in the Government for his association, knowingly or unknowingly, with a known Soviet espionage agent. Nevertheless, the Alsops find, Mr. Wallace could not give Mr. Harriman credit for his stand as it would displease his Communist captors.
A letter writer finds the electoral college system in the country lending itself to nomination of candidates who appealed to minority interests more so than those of the majority, as witnessed by the fact that the probable candidates in November would be President Truman, Senator Taft, and Henry Wallace, none of whom was favored by a majority of the people. Both President Truman and Senator Taft owed their rise in politics to political machines. Mr. Wallace's main support came from Communists and radical New Dealers. He urges the American people to make their voices heard as to their choice for the presidency.
A letter writer contends that Russia had opposed the creation of the Security Council veto power at the Charter Conference of the U.N. The editors correct him by indicating that both Russia and the U.S. had insisted that it be in the Charter.
He points out that Britain had not been concerned when the Nazis swallowed up Czechoslovakia by early 1939, following the September, 1938 Munich Pact to provide Hitler with the Sudetenland. But now Britain was terribly concerned about Communists taking over Czechoslovakia.
He hopes that the war tensions would subside but is saddened for the plight of the leaderless American nation since the death of FDR.
A letter writer says that the Presbyterian faith required only the Christian Sabbath to be observed as a holiday and did not prescribe anything with regard to Christmas, Easter, or other religious observances.
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