Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that U.N. mediator for
the Arab-Israeli conflict, Count Folke Bernadotte, 53, had been
deliberately shot and killed this date by four assassins wearing
Israeli Army uniforms, presumably of the Stern Gang, in the Jewish
portion of Jerusalem. Also killed was French Colonel Serot. U.S.
Colonel Frank Begley was slightly wounded in the face as he
struggled with one of the assailants. There had been threats on the
life of Count Bernadotte prior to the incident.
The reporter providing the story, John Roderick, had flown
aboard the plane from Damascus to Kollandia Airport in Jerusalem
with Count Bernadotte and the latter had provided the reporter a
note which advised against landing at Kollandia for the aircraft
would be fired upon. Count Bernadotte had quipped to Mr. Roderick
whether he wished to jump or be fired upon with the rest of the
plane's passengers. Count Bernadotte believed it an attempt to
frighten him and said that he would not be so cowed.
As Count Bernadotte left the plane, a sniper's bullet hit the
left rear wheel of his automobile, causing him again to quip that he
did not mind being fired upon by regular troops but did object to
irregulars.
He had been scheduled to report to the U.N. meeting in Paris
the following week. He had said at Damascus that both sides fired
blindly into the dark at night and sniped during the daytime, a
practice he labeled "idiotic".
He was a leader in the International Red Cross and headed the
Swedish chapter. In that role, he had effected three prisoner-of-war
exchanges with the Germans during the war. He had served as an
intermediary with Heinrich Himmler to effect his surrender in the
closing weeks of the war. His recent efforts had formed two
temporary truces in Palestine during the prior three months during
which he had steadily worked for a permanent solution to the
problem, albeit among criticism from both sides that he was favoring
one or the other. The Russians also frequently had criticized his
negotiations.
In Hyderabad, the Nizam offered a ceasefire to India in the
100-hour war. The Nizam said that he would form a new government the
next day after the resignations by the entire Cabinet. The Indian
Army had already marched into Hyderabad City, the capital. India
said that it would await a full text translation before commenting.
The U.N. Security Council said that the ceasefire would have
no immediate effect on the Council's determination of the pending
case of Hyderabad.
The Western allies tightened their counter-blockade on
Berlin, shutting off the last of the goods allowed to flow from the
Western zones to the Eastern zone controlled by Russia. Leaks had
developed in the system since it had been imposed July 26, still
having impacted negatively the economy of the Eastern zone. Patrols
were also increased at the crossing points between zones into the
East. German Communist leaders of the Socialist Unity Party again
criticized the West for planning a West German government, as Soviet
jeeps prowled the the Eastern sector borders, some entering quickly
into the American zone.
The State Department announced that it was giving close
scrutiny to Southeast Asia and the increased Communist activity in
Indonesia, Indo-China, and Malaya, as well as among the citizens of
independent Burma. State was considering a course of action but did
not disclose what was being considered. During the week, British
Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin had told Commons that the British
intended to take action to interdict Communist activities in Malaya.
Also, the Dutch Foreign Minister had recently visited Washington
regarding Indonesia and the Far East situation generally, seeking
the U.S. commitment to a stand against Communism in the region as in
Berlin.
The Ethiopian Legation demanded punishment of persons
responsible for the "insult" suffered by Minister Ras
Imru at the American Association for the Advancement of Science
meeting on Monday in Washington and sought that the U.S. Government
take immediate measures to repair the damage to avoid "serious
implications".
The insult was that an usher, acting on the instructions of
an unnamed woman, asked Mr. Imru to change his seat. The meeting was
held at Constitution Hall, owned by the D.A.R. The manager of the
building, however, said that the D.A.R. had nothing to do with the
incident.
Well, maybe there was a leak in the roof and the usher
thought it was about to rain.
Anyway, what are you going to do, attack us with bows and
arrows? We'll tell you to sit outside if we want. This is America.
We are not Commies.
The President, together with adviser Jonathan Daniels of the
Raleigh News & Observer—whom the President had not
retained as his press secretary after the death of FDR—, departed
on his 16-day, 100-speech, 9,500-mile cross-country tour through 21
states, vowing: "I'm going to fight hard and I'm going to give
them hell." He also said, "It's a victorious trip."
He intended to make three other rail tours and a plane trip to
Florida, a total of 15,000 to 20,000 miles, prior to election day on
November 2.
He's just crazy.
In Chicago, a 15-year old boy with polio since an infant died
as a result of injuries suffered in his determination to play sports
at his school. He was helping to organize and participating on the
basketball team when he put too much weight on his right leg and
fell to the hardwood floor, striking his head and fracturing his
skull.
In Charlotte, with the lifting of the ban on public
gatherings for the polio epidemic of the summer, the delayed News
co-sponsored Soap Box Derby was getting underway, to begin on
Tuesday morning at 8:30.
Jeepers, that doesn't leave very much time to build a race
car. Reckon we'll just have to stay awake until Tuesday morning
carving the pieces. We have to go find an engine, too, down at the
junkyard. Hope they're open on Saturday. Sheesh, give people a
little more notice next time.
On the sports page, Furman Bisher relates of the all-star
team of the Tri-State League, as baseball season approached its end.
On the editorial page, "The Squares of Europe" tells of great crowds gathering in city squares the previous week
across Europe for different reasons. In Amsterdam, the Dutch
celebrated a new Queen, Juliana, replacing her mother, Wilhelmina,
who had abdicated after 50 years. In Rome, Pope Pius XII bestowed
his blessings on 200,000 members of the Young Women's Catholic
Action Association, an anti-Communist group.
But in Berlin, there was a more ominous gathering the
previous Thursday, as 250,000 anti-Communists congregated along the
border between the Russian and British zones to protest the 80-day
old blockade by Russia of the city. Some viewed it as the most
effective answer yet to the Russian political campaign in Berlin. As
they surged into the Russian zone, one German youth was killed and
others were wounded as the Russian troops opened fire. One youth
climbed the stone foundations of the Brandenburg Gate and removed
the Russian flag.
It finds that this angry crowd in Berlin spoke in the
clearest tones to both Russia and the West, that the world was still
locked in combat three years after the end of the shooting war. The
fight for freedom had not yet been won.
"New Troubles Beset India" tells of two fledgling
wars ongoing in Hyderabad and Kashmir, both with origins in the
traditional conflict between Moslems and Hindus. The war could erupt
into a full-fledged "holy war" if left unchecked.
In Hyderabad, the bulk of the population was Hindu, ruled by
the Nizam, a Moslem. India had demanded a close economic and
security relationship with the state including liberation of the 80
percent Hindu population from Moslem rule. When Hyderabad refused,
India sent in its troops.
In the border region between India and Pakistan, Kashmir, a
slow-moving war was developing, presently at a standstill because of
the need for India's troops in Hyderabad. The Hindu-Moslem conflict
also was at the heart of this struggle.
A military victory in either or both conflicts would not
resolve the religious differences going back centuries.
Both conflicts were now before the U.N. Security Council, but
the world could not hope for resolution there to the religious
conflict. The solution, it posits, would have to come from within
the hearts of the people of India.
"On the Cultural Side" tells of the Little
Theater of Charlotte opening its season with the presentation of
"John Loves Mary", the Broadway hit. The Mint Museum of
Art would open its season the following Sunday with the exhibit of
Scalamander silks. The Charlotte Symphony Orchestra would soon open
its season, though the program had not yet been made public.
Each of the three organizations were supported wholly by the
public. It expresses pride in all three.
A piece from the Shelby Daily Star, titled "Where
Is the Discrimination?" tells of the Greensboro Schools
Superintendent finding that there were more black teachers in North
Carolina than in all of the states north of the Mason-Dixon Line.
Senator Clyde Hoey, of Shelby, had often pointed out how liberal
North Carolina was regarding employment of black teachers, who received the same pay as white teachers.
The piece recognizes that the black teachers taught only
black pupils, but believes it to be another factor which
dispelled the specter of discrimination by enabling the teachers to
teach black children in their own way.
It concludes that North Carolina was more liberal than many
states from which criticism of the segregated school systems of the
South had come.
Shelby's Thomas Dixon, we suppose, had been a progressive advocate
actually for black independence and Marcus Garvey's back-to-Africa
movement, not segregation and discrimination.
Drew Pearson remarks of his previous columns of August 4, 7,
10, and 13, anent the corruption of HUAC chairman J. Parnell Thomas,
receiving kickbacks of staff salaries and helping two soldiers avoid
action at the front while receiving campaign contributions from the
families. He reports further that other relatives and staff doing
little or no work were receiving salaries which they then rebated to
the Congressman. He reminds again that it was against the law for a
Government official to receive a kickback from a staff salary.
Mr. Thomas would eventually be disgraced and go to jail
behind these revelations in Mr. Pearson's column.
Ben Crosby, assistant chief of the State Department's public
liaison division, was talking on the phone with a journalist when a
loud wailing sound interrupted, prompting inquiry by Mr. Crosby. The
newsman explained that it was a "little Communist" they
had around the house, to which Mr. Crosby remonstrated that he
should never use that word on the phone when talking to the State
Department.
He relates of the real estate lobby, which had defeated the
slum clearance and public housing sections of the housing bill in
the special and regular sessions of Congress, now wrapping
themselves in the Constitution for a Constitution Day celebration.
They had managed to attract former chief of Naval operations Admiral
Chester Nimitz and former OSS head General "Wild Bill"
Donovan to be speakers for the event, along with Congressman Richard
Nixon of California. Admiral Nimitz would speak in Berkeley, Mr.
Nixon, in Alhambra, California, and General Donovan, in Rochester,
N.Y. Mr. Nixon had agreed to allow the real estate lobby to write
his publicly released statement for him with no strings attached.
Admiral Nimitz insisted that he would write his own statement and
that all of it had to be released to the public.
The lobby had obtained dead wood from Mount Vernon and
Monticello from which it fashioned gavels and placed tin plates from
the U.S.S. Missouri on them with inscriptions.
He suggests that for all of the patriotic publicity, the
public would likely not forget the real estate lobby's pulling of
strings to defeat the critical components of the housing bill.
Marquis Childs tells of General Omar Bradley, chief of staff
of the Army, struggling to construct a budget, due October 15, with
inflated prices causing various things necessary for the Army, such as shoes and shirts, perhaps sealing wax, to
cost as much as two-thirds more than in 1939-40. Part of the problem
was inflation and another part was the reluctance of private
business to bid on Army contracts. Business had been eager during
the Thirties with unemployment high.
Food and clothing prices were prime problems, complicated
further by rising costs of military equipment.
Moreover, the Army had to compete with the Navy and Air Force
for money. Since Congress had approved an expanded Air Force to 70
groups, the Air Force would demand an even higher budget than the
nearly five billion allocated for the current fiscal year, against
4.2 billion for the Army and 4.7 billion for the Navy. The new
budget was 15 billion for the next fiscal year, compared to 13.9 for
1948-49, and how it was to allocated had not been determined.
James Marlow tells of the 12-person bipartisan Hoover
Commission, chaired by former President Hoover, scrutinizing Federal
Government operations to determine how it could be made to run more
cheaply and efficiently. Only the executive branch was being
examined. The Federal Government, with over two million workers, had
more employees than all of the states and local governments
combined. Many of the various bureaus overlapped in function and it
was in those areas that the Commission was focusing, to eliminate
duplication. It was stressing how to enable the White House to
function more effectively with the executive branch.
The Commission would make its recommendations to the new
Congress the following January. It would then cease to exist 90 days
later. It was unique in the history of the country as no such
commission had ever possessed the breadth of authority as the Hoover
Commission. Its members had worked quietly without letting any of
the findings leak, to avoid use in the election campaign.
A letter writer explains the relationship between the Federal
Government and the states and localities under the Constitution, and
does a reasonable job of explication, comparing it to a tree of
which the Federal Government comprised the life-giving roots and
trunk. He finds that states' rights emanated from the effort to make
the state superior to the nation, leading to sectionalism, opposed
to union. He posits that if a group of Southern states was superior
to the nation, then so would be any group of states from any
section, devolving to factionalism. If states rights were to achieve
its ultimate purpose, he says, then the United States would become
history. It was a supreme paradox.
He also favors ending the electoral college, eliminating
thereby the one-party system in the South.
