Saturday, July 3, 1948

The Charlotte News

Saturday, July 3, 1948

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that in Berlin, Soviet Marshal Sokolovsky refused to give assurances to the Western occupation commanders that the Soviet blockade of rail traffic into the city from the West would be lifted. The four occupation commanders met for the first time since March 20. Also on the agenda were the two currencies now circulating in the city. After the meeting, an American representative said that the situation remained unchanged.

Albania reportedly had broken off cultural and trade agreements with Yugoslavia and ordered Yugoslavia's missions and military experts to leave Albania. Marshal Tito expressed insult at the rebuke, arising in the wake of the Cominform criticism of Yugoslavia for being anti-Russian. Yugoslavia had provided 40 million dollars worth of postwar aid to Albania.

The Arabs replied to the proposal of Count Folke Bernadotte, U.N. mediator, that Trans-Jordan be provided authority over the Arab portion of Palestine, subject to U.N. oversight, pursuant to the partition plan. The nature of the reply was not made public.

In Rome, a half-day industrial strike the previous day prompted the carabinieri to fire their tommyguns in the air to disperse angry crowds, as several carabinieri and demonstrators were injured in fighting and 27 demonstrators were arrested. The strike ended at midnight with no other violence.

The President utilized the pocket veto to kill a bill Congress had passed to aid the blind to obtain part-time work because, he said, it would be unfair to the unemployed blind. He was still considering the bill to raise the pay of Federal workers, by $450 per year for postal workers and $330 per year for civil service workers. The bill was criticized for not being adequate to cover the rise in the cost of living.

Eighteen state Democratic leaders called for a pre-convention caucus on July 10 to choose the ablest candidate. While not naming a particular alternate candidate to the President, it was believed that most favored drafting General Eisenhower for the nomination. The group was led by New York City Mayor William O'Dwyer. The list of leaders included future Senator, Vice-President and 1968 Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey, Mayor of Minneapolis, running for the Senate in 1948. An oddity is that his name was alongside Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, among those wanting the caucus.

Democratic nominee for Governor of North Carolina, and thus Governor-elect for all practical purposes, Kerr Scott stated that he would favor his campaign associate manager Capus Waynick for the state Democratic chairman, to replace former Lieutenant Governor Wilkins Horton, appointed by Governor Gregg Cherry to replace William Umstead upon his being appointed in early 1947 to the vacant Senate seat left by deceased Senator Josiah W. Bailey.

The first day of the holiday weekend had seen 19 deaths, 15 in traffic accidents, nationwide. The National Safety Council estimated that 235 persons would be killed during the three-day weekend. There had been 532 fatalities the previous year on the Fourth weekend, including 255 traffic deaths.

A 5,000-ton Swedish steamship caught fire off the coast of Delaware but all of the crew were able to abandon ship and were rescued without serious injury.

In Columbia, S.C., the Reverend Dr. Roy Short was elected a bishop by the Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference of the Methodist Church.

Showgirl Beryl Wallace, killed in an airplane crash in Pennsylvania on June 17, left an estate valued at $100,000.

In Kannapolis, N.C., a domestic dispute left two dead and a third person critically wounded. The wife of a newlywed couple had brought a non-support suit against her husband, who then went to the home of the wife's parents where she was staying. He was accompanied by a friend. The mother answered the door and when the father appeared, denying him access to their daughter, the husband shot him in the chest. He then ran into the house, grabbed his wife and slit her throat. She ran two blocks before collapsing, dead. The husband then shot himself in the head and later died. The father was in critical condition.

Love makes the world go round.

In Fayetteville, N.C., the 44-year old man, described in the headline again as the "Swamp Swain" or "Woods Wooer", accused of holding a 16-year old girl in the swamp against her will, was sentenced to twelve months on the roads for fornication and adultery, plus an additional six months for assault on a female, the sentences to run consecutively. The girl was also sentenced to 90 days for fornication and adultery, suspended on condition of five years of probation. The man had claimed the girl accompanied him voluntarily on the promise of marriage. He admitted whipping her on one occasion with a tree branch for making a lewd remark.

In Stillwater, Okla., a hired hand for a fireworks merchant found that he had no knife to cut the string binding the fireworks for sale, decided to burn the string in two, whereupon...

Not unlike the Fayetteville story...

In Charlotte, despite two wooden nickels having been found in one of the city's parking meters, receipts for the fiscal year were $53,000, topping the estimated revenue of $50,000.

Emery Wister of The News, just back from Hollywood, provides an interview with actor Lewis Stone, on page 10-A.

On the editorial page, "A Free America, a Free World" finds that the Spirit of '76 which had inspired the Declaration of Independence had now spread worldwide.

With forces of disunity working to provoke a third world war which would mean total destruction for the major powers, the last stage had thus been reached to secure the "unalienable rights" stated in the Declaration. The nations of the world were on the threshold of a world federation, just as the thirteen colonies were embarked on the path to national federation. The attempt to establish the League of Nations in the Twenties and Thirties and the establishment of the U.N. in 1945, along with the Pan-American Union, the Marshall Plan, and the Western European Union since that time, were steps in the process to such a world federation.

"Tito Sends Love to Stalin" comments on the letter from Marshal Tito to Prime Minister Stalin, imploring the latter to erase the falsehood that had been created by the Cominform criticism, stating that Yugoslavia and Tito had been anti-Russian in their approach to Communism. It appeared as the first time anyone had tried to obtain from Stalin or the Politburo a reversal of a position by appeal to sentiment.

The piece finds the whole dispute to appear phony, something cooked up in the Kremlin by Stalin as an excuse to eliminate the Cominform, as a prelude to settlement with the West. It was in line with recent statements suggesting Russia's desire to form such a settlement, begun in the wake of the loss of Communist strength in the Italian elections of April 18.

The Berlin crisis fell into this pattern, to remind Western leaders that compromise would be the best path to peace. It appeared that Stalin, as convoluted as such a stratagem seemed, might deliberately reverse himself in the Tito matter, to demonstrate his friendship to the West.

"Brother, How's Your I.Q.?" questions whether there was actually a mistake in the Wednesday quiz in the newspaper which asked for correction of the sentence: "I wish one of my brothers were coming."

Entitled to the subjunctive treatment or not? That was the question.

If you were to take the quiz one day, how would you answer? Would you have agreed with Miss Jessie Henderson's former English students?

Drew Pearson tells of the many distinguished visitors among Democrats visiting of late General Eisenhower at his new post as president of Columbia University. The callers came away with the impression that he would not be a candidate for the presidency but that he was also worried about the direction of the country in foreign relations. Despite General Eisenhower's persistent denial that he would run or accept a draft, some of his chief backers, as Leonard Finder, believed he would accept the draft of the Democrats. So Mr. Finder persisted in his efforts to effectuate the draft.

Mr. Pearson suggests that if there were an overwhelming demand for General Eisenhower to run or if President Truman stepped aside, the General would accept the nomination.

Teamsters president Dan Tobin was not attending the Democratic convention this time, though having been a delegate to the previous four conventions. Mr. Tobin leaned toward General Eisenhower.

The Minnesota Democrats decided to send an uninstructed delegation to the convention. The executive committee was controlled by Americans for Democratic Action, strong for either General Eisenhower or Justice Douglas. The Democratic state chairman was Orville Freeman, future Kennedy Administration Secretary of Agriculture, and Mr. Freeman was ADA chairman in Minnesota.

In Pennsylvania, the state chairman had difficulty getting the state convention not to endorse General Eisenhower.

Marquis Childs comments on the optimism displayed by the President in the face of certain defeat in the fall. At his recent press conference of 100 reporters, he read his statement criticizing the housing bill which he had reluctantly signed. Probably none of the reporters believed the President could win the election. He stated nevertheless that he believed he could beat the Dewey-Warren ticket, while expressing his like for Governor Warren. He also stated that he had no intention of retiring as a candidate and added that it was a foolish question.

Some doubted the reality of his brave face but no one could really tell what he was thinking.

He made no comment on the Tito-Cominform break, but it was the first concrete confirmation that the get-tough policy with Russia, begun with the March, 1947 Truman Doctrine to send military aid to Greece and Turkey, was working. The country undoubtedly would hear a lot of this success in the coming campaign.

It was likely that he would maintain the air of optimism in the months ahead.

James Marlow discusses Thomas Dewey's promise to conduct housecleaning if elected President. He could clean out the Executive Branch, but not the Judicial or Legislative Branches.

The 275 Federal judges were appointed for life and their 3,000 employees were appointed by those judges. The only thing a new President could do would be to appoint new judges when vacancies arose by retirement or death.

Congress had about 4,000 employees, hired by Congress. The President could do nothing about them.

There were about two million Executive Branch employees. Of those, about 92 percent were civil service employees, not subject to being fired without cause or in the event their jobs were eliminated by Congress. The remainder, 163,840, were appointed positions. It was these positions which the President could directly affect. The agency heads numbered about a hundred, the rest being employees appointed by the agency heads.

The Editors' Roundtable, edited by James Galloway of Asheville, looks at the candidacy of Thomas Dewey, finds most editorial opinion to believe that he could achieve party unity in the country if elected, just as he had at the GOP convention.

The Long Beach Press-Telegram finds Mr. Dewey acceptable because he resolved the divergent views of the party better than any other of the candidates and had no extreme positions on foreign or domestic matters, would bring new authority to the White House, presently lacking.

The Louisville Times finds the nomination the result of a slick machine, questions whether that could effect unity with a Republican Congress.

The Asheville Citizen praises the selection of Governor Warren as injection to the ticket of moderate liberalism, but wonders what deals Mr. Dewey had made to obtain the necessary majority for the nomination, which he lacked going into the convention, beginning with the Pennsylvania delegation.

The Tampa Times finds no sign of deals given the nomination of Governor Warren.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch reminds of the duplicity of the Republicans in 1920 when 31 prominent party members, including Herbert Hoover, stated that the Republicans could be instrumental in bringing America into an effective League of Nations, only to see the party, upon victory, do the opposite, suggests that while 1948 would not necessarily be such a repeat performance, it was worth remembering the past.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette finds that Mr. Dewey in his coldly efficient methods had not dispelled the idea in the American mind that he was a "political opportunist".

The Atlanta Constitution labels Mr. Dewey a "professional compromiser", more calculatingly so than most politicians, though it was the nature of the beast.

The New York Times finds the unity evident at the convention deceptive but still without divisive bitterness.

A letter writer, while lying on the roof of the YMCA sun-bathing, heard the song "O! Where Is My Wandering Boy Tonight" and began thinking of the sad plight of the American home, beset by "divorce, immorality, and dissension". He recommends as a remedy starting a crusade to revive the family altar.

Good, then, stop your vain suntanning on the roof and get to it.

We note that without any announcement of the fact, Samuel Grafton's column ended with the June 18 edition, having been a fixture on the page since December 9, 1942, three years after he began writing the nationally syndicated entry, albeit alternating space each week with the Alsops since they first appeared April 2, 1947. Mr. Grafton was neither on vacation at the Outer Banks bass fishing nor off exploring the vagaries and desultory nature of betel nuts this time. He was gone for good, although continuing to write into the 1980's. (As to the subject of the cited piece by Mr. Grafton, Judge J. Waties Waring, blame not the Judge for his waywardness from the strait and narrow of Southern gentlemanliness, for he apparently was another of the lost souls cornered and brainwashed by that scurrilous scalawag, inimical to everything decent and kind and gentle and sweet about the Southernmost South, W. J. Cash—himself, the victim of bull-walkers of tony dogs.) Among Mr. Grafton's several feathers was the "Grafton Plan", a successful campaign in the spring of 1944 to establish several free ports in the United States for Jewish refugees, not constrained by immigration quotas, resulting in the Oswego, N.Y., free port, saving a thousand lives in the process despite it being authorized by Congress only late in the war. Mr. Grafton lived until December 2, 1997, dying at the age of 90, just a year before this website had its inception. Adios and happy trails, Amigo...

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