The Charlotte News

Tuesday, April 27, 1948

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the Jewish Agency appealed to the U.N. for intervention to halt the Trans-Jordan Arab Legion from entering Palestine, saying that if the organization failed to act, Jews would meet any invading Arab force with armed force.

The U.S. ignored the plea and pressed anew for the formation of a temporary trusteeship over Palestine. Russia objected to discussion of a trusteeship until formal abandonment of the previously passed plan for partition. The U.N. Trusteeship Council began deliberating on a French proposal to create a 1,000-man elite volunteer police force to safeguard the holy places of Jerusalem.

An Arab source said that troops of an Egyptian armored division entered southern Palestine at dawn this date. But Egyptian Government sources denied the rumor from Cairo.

A light vote was being recorded in the Pennsylvania primary, with only a thirty percent turnout expected among Republicans, as none of the candidates had campaigned actively in the state.

The president of the CIO Textile Workers Union, Emil Rieve, urged the President to bow out of the race, favored drafting of either General Eisenhower or nomination of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. He rejected each of the Republican candidates and Henry Wallace with one-line dismissals.

In Detroit, William Knudsen, former president of G.M. and coordinator of industrial mobilization during the war, died at age 69.

In Charlotte, "America's Town Meeting of the Air" went forward at the Armory this night, before which participant Dorothy Thompson, syndicated columnist whose column had been carried by The News during the Thirties and through the war, answered questions of the press and swapped barbs with fellow panelists, said she was in town to do some red-baiting and perform a witch-hunt, added, in apparent non sequitur, that Henry Morgenthau, former Secretary of the Treasury, was an "ineffable ass".

Senator Glen Taylor arrived for the program, said that there was no real third party as the two principal parties had merged into one. Senator Taylor would become the running mate to Henry Wallace.

In Akron, O., a year-old infant was deemed insensible to pain. Pin pricks caused her to laugh, did not react to bumps and bruises, did not cry when injected with a needle for anemia. Doctors said her condition was rare but not unique and congenital in origin.

She might even be able to withstand the 1948 election year, nay, even HUAC and the investigation into Mr. Hiss yet to come.

On the editorial page, "America's Town Meeting" discusses the "Town Meeting of the Air" to be broadcast this evening from Charlotte regarding whether a third party could bring peace and prosperity. It thinks it unlikely that a third party would provide the solution to an issue which had vexed politicians for centuries.

But the hope for peace and prosperity was kept alive by such programs as this one, on the air for eleven years, and as long as the people debated the issue, there was a chance for the lofty goals to be realized.

"How to Stop Harold Stassen?" recaps the history of primary winners who failed to achieve party nomination, Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, losing the Republican nomination to incumbent President Taft, Senator Hiram Johnson of California and General Leonard Wood in 1920, both losing the nomination to Warren G. Harding. In 1940, Wendell Willkie had not figured in the primaries at all but captured the nomination away from the young contender Thomas Dewey. It was the rule then, at a time when there were few primaries, generally regarded as "beauty contests", that "primaries indicate; conventions nominate."

Mr. Stassen was the exponent of Republican liberalism and was more formidable than either T.R. in 1912, Senator Johnson in 1920, or Wendell Willkie in 1940. He would be a strong pre-convention candidate against the Old Guard, possibly the strongest ever.

"The Proper Study of Antkind" points to a scientific study conducted by the National Geographic Society in Panama anent ants, finding 40 percent doing nothing, forty percent working, and the remaining 20 percent vacillating. While some stored grain for harsh times, as Solomon found, others appeared profligate, bursting another long-held illusion. It concludes that if the ants could fool Solomon, perhaps man could also fool someone.

A piece from the Louisville Courier-Journal, titled "Perils Beset the Middle Way", tells of the moderates disappearing when Communism either gained control of a country or when it lost, as in Italy, the opposition usually swinging too far to the right to defeat Communism. The phenomenon had to be recognized in the opposition leadership in France with Charles De Gaulle and in China with Chiang Kai-Shek.

The recent insurrection in Bogota could not be wholly laid at the doorstep of the Communists when depressed economic conditions gave rise to it.

The editorial reminds that all the efforts of the United States on behalf of Italy would not keep Communism at bay forever unless the abject poverty in the country were eliminated.

Sumner Welles, former Undersecretary of State until August, 1943, discusses the outcome of the Italian elections, with two-thirds of the electorate rejecting Communism. But the elections, he cautions, marked only a first step in the process as the Communist Party remained strong in Italy, would continue to seek to undermine ERP. The U.S. would have to eliminate the poverty on which Communism fed.

It was likely that Russia would be content for the nonce to seek to consolidate its gains in Czechoslovakia, Finland, Hungary and the Balkans, looking for soft spots in Asia and the Near East. In consequence, the world would be divided indefinitely between Eastern and Western spheres.

Russia was consistent and ruthless in its dictatorship, something which the U.S. could not do in a democracy.

He thinks that the surest path to war would occur from reversal of the present policy of increasing armament or forming a premature settlement with Russia. When the Kremlin became convinced that Russia's power was met by a united West, the danger of war would be eliminated. Only then could the U.S. afford to negotiate a settlement to form a one-world order from the two-world order.

Drew Pearson tells of Russia having sought a conference between President Truman and Premier Stalin and the President having turned it down as he was not going to lick anyone's boots. Mr. Pearson believed, however, that in light of the outcome of the Italian elections, such acquiescence to a meeting could not be perceived as boot-licking as it would reopen the dialogue which had ceased since the failure of the last foreign ministers conference in December, a dangerous situation of mutual silence to maintain. For the longer war could be postponed, the better would be the chance to build a friendly Western Europe.

Averell Harriman had remained mum to the end with his close associates regarding his appointment as roving ambassador for ERP.

The Duke of Windsor had lunch recently with Senator Alben Barkley, talked of the coal strike, the Italian elections and British coal production.

The only convert on the Senate Armed Services Committee won over by Secretary of Defense Forrestal to the 66-group Air Force, favored instead of 70 groups, was Senator Burnet Maybank of South Carolina.

Joseph Alsop tells of the stop-Stassen movement in the Republican Party not having gelled yet between the forces supporting Senator Taft and those of Governor Dewey, both still fighting separately and at odds with one another, each believing their man to be the better to lead the effort.

The previous week, Governor Dewey had sought to line up delegates from Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Indiana, the results having been disappointing. None of the Republican leaders of the three states had committed to Mr. Dewey. If he were to fail in the Oregon primary, his support could begin to fall apart in advance of the June convention.

Senator Taft, even if he proved successful in his home state of Ohio against the Stassen effort there, was deemed by observers as excluded as a potential nominee, having fared poorly in Wisconsin and Nebraska.

If both Senator Taft and Governor Dewey were ruled out as the nominee, then the next most favored candidate was Senator Arthur Vandenberg, who had insisted he was not interested. So the problem with a disintegrated support base for Senator Taft and Governor Dewey was that their supporters would have no alternative candidate to whom to turn.

If former Governor Stassen failed or only made a modest showing in both Oregon and Ohio, he was finished as the dark horse candidate, despite having won the Wisconsin and Nebraska primaries.

Samuel Grafton assesses the Italian election, suggests that while the results were in and democracy had won against Communism, the battle would never be over. What had been won by the U.S. was the right to rebuild Italy into a self-sustaining economy, in a country with the largest landless peasant class in Europe and huge inflation. That sustained, slow effort would develop without so much publicity as the election horse-race.

A Quote of the Day: "Up in Maine a baby sixteen days old is walking. There seems to be no limit to infantile precocity. Next thing you hear boy babies will be born with cigarettes in their mouths and pink flasks on their hips while girl babies will come into the world fully equipped with lipstick, rouge and the New Look." —Jackson (Miss.) News

Another Pome from the Atlanta Journal, this one "reflecting feeling of frustrated versifier when the muse is being coy and he can't think up a suitable jingle which to conclude his col'm:
I can't squeeze a pome,
Out of my dome."

But can you get
The red, red loam
From out your comb?

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