The Charlotte News

Tuesday, November 22, 1949

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that in Budapest, the Government of Hungary announced that it had arrested an American businessman, executive of I.T.&.T., and a British businessman on charges of spying and sabotage. A third businessman had also been arrested. All three, the report said, had signed confessions, the third man having implicated the other two.

The U.S. received a report indirectly, via a Mukden radio broadcast, that the Chinese Communist people's court intended to reach a final decision within days regarding the fate of imprisoned American consul general Angus Ward, held along with four staff members since October 24 for allegedly beating a Chinese employee, a charge which the State Department had labeled "trumped up".

Thomas A. Reedy reports from Berlin that, based on reports compiled by Western allied officials, a revival of German nationalism was on the rise. They found behind this movement efforts by Germans to soft pedal the war crimes trials and to resist dismantling of German industry.

The Russians, to win political support, had restored rights to former Nazis only to see them band together to resist Communist ideas, as nationalization of industries. The Russians found nationalist resistance within their own party ranks in Germany, accused the nationalists of "Titoism".

How much of the spirit was nationalism and how much was linked to Nazism was a matter of debate among observers.

ERP administrator Paul Hoffman, speaking at Pomona College in Claremont, California, said that the Politburo was planning to take over the U.S. in due course. But the effort would be thwarted, he added, if the country remained strong and Western Europe achieved economic recovery.

Near Oslo, the mercy plane carrying 28 Jewish refugee children from Tunis to Norway for rest and rehabilitation before being carried to Israel, had been found crashed in a wooded area with one 12-year old survivor who was said to be in good condition with only minor injuries. He had been seated in the tail section of the DC-3, the only part of the craft to escape damage. The plane had been missing for two days. Of the 34 others aboard, 31 bodies had been recovered.

Near Manila, a battle was reported taking place between about 300 Communist-led Hukbalahaps and constabulary forces in Batangas province. The group of dissidents had been formed against the Japanese during the war and had resisted the landlords and the constabulary since the end of the war.

In Washington, Sir Herbert Broadley of Great Britain, deputy director of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, urged in the second day of the conference of the Organization that a prompt start be made to provision of technical assistance to less productive farm areas all over the world. The President, who had urged in January that technical assistance be extended to underdeveloped nations, his so-called "Point Four" program, was scheduled to speak in the afternoon.

In New York, in the second trial for perjury of Alger Hiss, Whittaker Chambers testified under cross-examination that he had used the birth certificate of a dead child to apply for a passport in 1935, with the assistance of J. Peters, whom he identified as the chief of the Communist underground in the country at that time. The defense also introduced documentation showing that Mr. Chambers was dismissed from Columbia University for stealing library books during the 1920's. He denied recalling use of the name John Crossley, that by which Mr. Hiss had stated he knew Mr. Chambers during the mid-1930's, but admitted that it was possible he had used the name.

Also in New York, the espionage trial of Judy Coplon and her alleged co-defendant Russian spy was postponed until December 27 after the Russian, a former employee of the U.N. secretariat, who had been representing himself, obtained counsel who needed time to prepare for trial.

Also in New York, a former Army staff sergeant, entered a plea of not guilty to twelve acts of treason against American prisoners following the Japanese seizure of Corregidor in 1942, and was ordered to trial on December 6. One charge was that he had caused the Japanese to execute an American Army captain by reporting him for anti-Japanese activities and being uncooperative. He faced the death penalty if convicted.

Near Eau Claire, Wisc., five children died in a fire at a farm house while their parents were in the barn.

In Los Angeles, an eleven-year old boy, missing for three weeks, was found alive and well in a gas station washroom. He had been walking around the wilds of Hollywood, sleeping under shrubs and eating peanut butter and bread bought with pennies earned from bottle returns, since being sent home with a note regarding trouble at school. He threw away the note the day after he began his sojourn.

In Winnsboro, S.C., a co-defendant of "the man without fingerprints", accused of robbing a storekeeper in mid-August of his life savings of $41,500, had been freed on $7,500 bail. He had been captured in mid-September, asleep in a rural church in Georgia.

In sports, the University of Santa Clara in California was selected as one of the teams to participate in the 1950 Orange Bowl on January 2 in Miami.

On the editorial page, "Carolinians in Congress" tells of the Congressional Quarterly having found that North Carolina's Congressional delegation had demonstrated more party loyalty than their counterparts of South Carolina. But a South Carolina member had the highest loyalty rating in the Carolinas at 98 percent. The piece provides a list of the members and their percentage of party-loyal votes.