Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the ceasefire in
Jerusalem had been agreed to by both Arabs and Jews and went into
effect this date without a shot being heard in the city. It was
temporary to afford time for the U.N. truce commission, comprised of
the U.S., France, and Belgium, to work out a permanent truce. For
the permanent truce, Jews demanded free access from Tel Aviv to the
Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and deportation of foreign Arab fighters
from the city.
Egyptian volunteers had penetrated 30 miles into Palestine
and reported having held their posts without casualties, with
forward lines moving to aid the Arab defense against the Jewish
attack at Iraq Suweidan, 30 miles north of Rafa on the Egyptian
border. The reports were not confirmed by Jewish sources.
In Seoul, Korea, pre-election Red-inspired terrorism had
occurred for the first time in the capital and the Russian commander
of the northern occupation zone of Korea had announced the Russian
intent to withdraw, expressly to force the American withdrawal from
the southern occupation zone, both zones having been established
after the war. Similar proposals had been previously rejected by the
U.S. Twenty-four hours before the election, new acts of Red-inspired
violence had occurred, having begun in Korea in February.
In Rangoon, pre-war Premier U Saw of Burma was hanged for having ordered
the machine-gunning of seven Cabinet ministers the previous July 19.
Dr. Edward Condon, director of the Bureau of Standards, asked
the Commerce Department and the President to make public the report
by the F.B.I. on his loyalty, a report sought by HUAC but refused by
the President. Dr. Condon had been labeled the chief security risk
in the Government anent atomic secrecy for his supposed association
with a Russian espionage agent. The House had recently voted heavily
to support the HUAC request.
Conferences continued at the White House between the railroad
operators, the three railroad brotherhoods threatening strike the
following Tuesday, and John R. Steelman, albeit meeting with Mr.
Steelman separately, as he found no basis yet for having them meet
together. There was no sign of progress, blocked thus far by the iron wall of continuing discord by Lampon.
Harold Stassen said that he was stepping up his presidential
campaign in the South. He claimed to have acquired the support of
the majority of the Florida and Missouri delegations to the GOP
convention.
He would speak in Winston-Salem the following Tuesday night.
Be sure to attend. He could be the next President. In fact, the only
real question remaining is who will be Veep.
The Second Assistant Postmaster General said that he doubted
much could be done soon to remedy the sloth of airmail into
Charlotte, found to be as slow or slower than regular ground mail.
He said that it was the 30th anniversary of the establishment of
airmail service in the country and that jet service would soon take
over the routes, with the first such route to open during the
following week from New York to Washington, cutting from 4.5 hours
to 30 minutes the flight time.
Tom Schlesinger of The News tells of J. S. Trotter of
Charlotte, a piano player, being, since 1935, a musical arranger for
Bing Crosby. Mr. Trotter, affable and obese at 270 pounds, had come
home to Charlotte to see his mother on Mother's Day, the first time
they had united since the previous Thanksgiving, because Mr. Crosby
was in Pittsburgh to see the Pirates, which he partly owned, causing
rehearsals to be held in New York rather than the usual setting in
Los Angeles.
In Winsted, Conn., a two-year old collie dog was scheduled to
go on trial for his life on Monday night, with the Town Board of
Selectmen acting as judge and jury. Over 20 citizens had signed a
petition to destroy the dog, named "Laddie", on ground
that it was vicious and dangerous. Others in the town had signed a
counter-petition, agreeing with Laddie's owner that he was okay,
rather suffering only from shell shock acquired after being exposed
to a dynamite blast. Laddie was accused thereafter of biting a
newsboy who delivered papers to the home. His mistress said that it
was only a "slight bite". She said that Laddie had
mistaken the plop of the paper on the porch for another bomb blast
and dashed after the perceived perpetrator. Neighbors, however, said
that Laddie was vicious by nature.
Truth be known, Laddie was just practicing, preparing himself for the journey south. Since that dynamite blast, Laddie, for some time, had a hankering to look up ol' black-souled fleet o' foot down there in Birmingham, believed responsible for that blast, figuring he was going to notch his collar one time, wring out that old cur's neck, just like any standard game-fowl Shylocklucker splayed in the barnyard.
On the editorial page, "Editors Explore North Carolina" tells of more than 400 newspaper people from 44 states starting from
Pinehurst, N.C., on a six-day tour of the state, following
attendance at the National Editorial Association convention. They
were owners, editors and publishers for the most part, who had an
active interest in community development.
The piece urges that these individuals could be goodwill
ambassadors for the state in their home bailiwicks. They want them
therefore to have a good time in their tour of the state.
Show them a good time...
"The Criminal Land-Robbers" tells of Dr. Malcolm
Ross of the University of Miami informing the Southern Association
of Science & Industry that most of the 800 million dollars spent
annually on research went to institutions in the North and East.
All of the arable acreage was necessary to support the
growing population worldwide and it urges therefore being a good
custodian of the land. Gullies and bare banks were crimes against
the children. They needed to be planted in clover or pines to keep
them from eroding.
Whether a neighbor or corporation was responsible for such
eroding land, they needed to be called to account.
"Are Bald Heads Wiser?" remarks on a claim by
Noah Parsons in the Louisville Courier-Journal: "Crazy
bald-headed men are scarcer than hen's teeth. I never knew but one
bald-headed man to go crazy, and he wore a toupee. It was debatable
whether he went crazy and bought the toupee, or went crazy by
wearing it." He went on to contend that bald-headed men were
affable, with a high sense of humor, and were cool-headed.
But Thomas Prather answered the claim with his own contention
that he knew some crazy bald-headed men in his town of Somerset, Ky.
The editorial takes the side of the bald, saying that such
men no longer were able to delude themselves into thinking that they
were devastating to the ladies, the first step to sane thinking.
Well, sure, and such men also run hirsute males crazy with
their insistence that old baldy there is the cat's meow receiving
all the action for his level-headedness.
We say balderdash to all that. There are plenty of crazy bald
men and plenty of crazy hirsute ones. The contenders apparently did
not get out in the world very much or pay attention very closely to
the photos in Life Magazine.
And how would the argument apply to women, pray tell? That
the fact of there being few crazy bald women means...?
A piece from the Raleigh News & Observer, titled
"They Are Twins", tells of the State Supreme Court
granting a new trial to black defendants for systematic exclusion of
blacks on juries which had either indicted or convicted them, while
on the same day affirming the segregation law pertinent to public
transportation.
It posits that too few had recognized the necessity of equal
facilities to maintain segregation under the extant
separate-but-equal doctrine, recognized at the time as
Constitutionally acceptable under the 14th Amendment since Plessy
v. Ferguson in 1896—a doctrine subsequently overturned in
Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.
It suggests that the energy expended in trying to denounce or
defend segregation could be more profitably turned to effort to see
that equal treatment was fulfilled voluntarily.
Drew Pearson tells of the German war documents captured by
the British anent Nazi deals with Arabs having not been made public,
at the behest of the Defense Department, chary of embarrassing the
Arabs. The documents showed that King Farouk of Egypt had furnished
war secrets to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel when the British were
backed up to the wall in Egypt in the summer of 1942. Former
Minister-President Rachid El Gailaini of Iraq had received bribes
from the Nazis. King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia also negotiated with
Hitler.
He supplies a letter from German Ambassador Ettel to German
Foreign Minister Joaquin Von Ribbentrop, dated March 24, 1943, in
which he explains that King Farouk had expressed to him his support
for Axis victory and stated that the rumors that Egypt was seeking
rapprochement with the democracies were only a matter of expedience.
He next tells of Senator Harry Cain of Washington seeking to
pass a substitute housing bill which ignored low-cost public housing
and slum clearance to enable profits to private builders. Housing
lobby-friendly Representatives Jesse Wolcott of Michigan, Ralph
Gamble of New York, and Majority Leader Charles Halleck of Indiana
had huddled with Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin to try to
effect passage of the bill while House and Senate leaders on the
other side were away, until Senators William Fulbright of Arkansas and
Irving Ives of New York blocked action on it until the principal
foes of the legislation could return.
He notes that House leaders were planning to block the
Taft-Ellender-Wagner long-term housing bill in the Banking &
Finance Committee of the House, chaired by Mr. Wolcott.
Detroit police had questioned former UAW president R. J.
Thomas regarding the shooting of his rival, UAW president Walter
Reuther, but nothing had come of the investigation.
Lee Pressman, former CIO general counsel, might become a
third-party Congressional candidate in Brooklyn.
Marquis Childs tells of one more major piece of legislation
on the agenda for the 80th Congress, that being to establish the
relationship of the U.S. to the Western European Union. Senator
Vandenberg, as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, would be
the determining force behind it.
The drive in Congress to revise the structure of the U.N. to
eliminate and at least reduce the veto power on the Security
Council, as well to affirm the concept of world government, had two
sources of support, those who were idealists and those who saw the
move as an opportunity to drive Russia from the U.N.
Secretary of State Marshall had recently told the Committee
that such a change would only pave the path to war, creating two
rival alliances between East and West.
Senator Vandenberg and Secretary Marshall saw eye to eye on
foreign policy and so the final resolution would be close to the
Secretary's thinking, "copper-riveted, just as was the ERP, to
insure the acid test of acceptance."
Senator Vandenberg also got on well with Congressman Charles
Eaton, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Mr. Childs opines that the Republican convention could not
afford to ignore Senator Vandenberg for his critical contribution to
the establishment of bipartisan foreign policy.
Samuel Grafton asserts that the efforts of Congress to
eliminate the veto power of the U.N. Security Council were futile,
as the veto was integral to the original approval of the Charter.
Even if Russia left the U.N., it would still exist in the form of
Russia's armed opposition.
He predicts that it might take 25 to 50 years to abandon the
veto by producing a world situation in which it would no longer be
mutually desirable by the five nations which possessed it. But if it
were eliminated presently, it would be permanent in its existence as
the U.N. crumbled in consequence. Peace could no more be made in a
few minutes than an onion in less than a summer. He wonders whether
there was really a mandate for pressing forward to an immediate
showdown.
He believes that most Americans would welcome an exploratory
conference between the U.S. and Russia.
He says that he continued to consider the woman in Tennessee
who had awakened after suffering for twelve years with encephalitis
and whose relatives were taking care not to disclose too much too
soon about intervening world events since 1936, as the world was too
upside-down to explain it fully at once. The mandate was to make the
world less topsy-turvy rather than pressing forward "into new
continents of incredibility."
A letter writer urges affording the same space in newspapers
to editorials seeking peace as those seeking to urge military
build-up or war with respect to Russia.
A letter responds to the May 4 editorial accusing Senator
Glen Taylor and former Vice-President Henry Wallace, running
together as the Progressive Party candidates for Vice-President and
President, respectively, of being hypocritical in the stand taken by
Senator Taylor in Birmingham, being arrested and then convicted of
disorderly conduct for seeking to use the black-only entrance to the
Alliance Gospel Tabernacle—a meeting originally scheduled for
the 16th Street Baptist Church, forced by the Birmingham
police to be moved, presumably at the direction of Public Safety Commissioner
Bull "Pants Down" Connor—where he was to speak to the Southern Negro Youth
Congress.
The writer accuses the editorial of being "demagogical
and opportunistic" in its treatment of the third party,
covering up the "deceitfulness of race bias". He finds
only ignorance in the careful distinctions made in the newspaper's
editorials between the Karl Mundt-sponsored bill to require
registration of Communist Party and Communist-front organization
membership, which the newspaper opposed, as well as Taft-Hartley,
which it opposed partly, and the racial segregation laws, for which
it had, recently at least, voiced support while favoring equality of the segregated facilities.
He had found the newspaper until recently to be the most
liberal and honest of the larger North Carolina newspapers. But not
so in its more recent editorialization.
The arrest of Senator Taylor, he opines, was a frightening
indication, aside from its race bias, of the growing intimidation
against liberals all over the country.
He accuses the editors of lying in their teeth.
The editors respond: "Liberal McGirt [the author] is
mighty liberal with his hard words."
Well, we have to agree to a point with Mr. McGirt on this
one. Again, however, the editors did not have our benefit of 20-20
hindsight on Birmingham, which disgraced itself in the national
media in the early 1960's and was probably a prime source for the
hatred which spilled onto the streets of Dallas on November 22,
1963.
Had they been aware of the insidious Klansman mentality, if
not Klansman in fact, which Bull Connor represented with his
"nigger" talk and, more to the point, his dogs,
firehoses and brutality, which undoubtedly gave license tacitly or
with a nod-and-wink to the bombers of Birmingham, the editors might
have reacted differently to what they regarded as a publicity stunt
by Senator Taylor. Senator Taylor was quite sincere, courageous, and
conscientious in what he did, as were Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and
the people of Birmingham, especially the children, in May, 1963,
finally breaking the back of Birmingham's long history of
segregation of public accommodations in the most time-honored
manner, peacefully.
The News had praised Mahatma Gandhi at his
assassination on January 30. A moment's reflection would have given
to the editors the notion which inspired Senator Taylor and would later
inspire Dr. King, at the time in 1948 an impressionable 19 years
old.
Sometimes it is easier to appreciate fairness in the abstract
from afar than it is to see it in one's own backyard, filtered as it
is then by the talk of neighbors and friends, accompanied by the
negative sanction of condemnatory looks or even ostracism of anyone
who dares to step from the shadows to call cold attention to the
continuing prejudices extant in a given community or region or
country. That, plainly, deserved nothing less than death.
That Senator Taylor did not wind up dead in Birmingham may be
from the fact of his cowboy-singerstatusprotecting him from the
worst feelings engendered in the good ol' boys of the Kloth.
