The Charlotte News
Wednesday, December 14, 1949
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that in Tel Aviv, the offices of Israel's President and Prime Minister, as well as the Knesset, were being moved to Jerusalem, in defiance of the U.N. resolution to internationalize the city under a U.N. trusteeship. The proclamation issued by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion stopped short of declaring Jerusalem the capital, following advice of the U.S. Ambassador that it would be inflammatory.
The U.N. trusteeship council, meanwhile, voted 6 to 1, with five nations abstaining, to go ahead with plans approved the previous week by the General Assembly to set up the trusteeship in the Holy City, while a resolution to delay it was defeated.
In Sofia, Bulgaria, former Communist Vice-Premier Traicho Kostov was convicted of treason and sentenced to death by hanging. The number two defendant, Ivan Stefanov, the former Finance Minister, was also convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. They and nine other defendants were charged with plotting with the U.S., Great Britain, and Yugoslavia to make Bulgaria a puppet of Marshal Tito. Mr. Kostov was attempting to recant his confession made to police when the trial was abruptly ended and judgments pronounced. The other ten defendants pleaded guilty and confessed the charges.
In Washington, atomic scientist Harold Urey said that he found silly the stir regarding shipments of atomic materials to Russia during the war, that the uranium products sent were normal articles of commerce at the time. He said that HUAC had "done little good" for the country. He wondered why former Major G. Racey Gordon, who revealed the shipments and stated that he had also removed radar equipment from planes bound for Russia, was not court martialed for removing the equipment. He favored a world government to enable control of atomic energy and believed secrecy in the U.S. was hampering atomic development.
The Committee for Economic Development, an organization of business executives, estimated that national defense would cost at least 20 billion dollars per year for several years to come. It recommended safeguarding civilian supremacy, strengthening long-range security, and protecting civil liberties. It warned that investigations into loyalty could degenerate into witch-hunts which threatened the whole structure of individual freedom.
Secretary of State Acheson said that new steps were being considered to try to free two U.S. airmen captured by the Communist Chinese on October 19, 1948 near Tsingtao. Both men had been reported by missionaries to be in good health.
According to the American Retail Coal Association meeting in Chicago, the shortened work week of coal miners to three days had caused the coal shortage to become critical, that within two weeks many cities and towns would be running out.
In Miami, Fla., eight survivors of the Dutch motorship Doros were brought to shore as a search continued for 16 missing persons. The surviving chief engineer said that all the other officers aboard were dead. He said an explosion had occurred on Monday morning which caused the ship to burst into flames. He did not know the cause.
In Sioux City, Iowa, at least six persons had been killed and a hundred injured in an explosion in the five-story main office building of the Swift & Co. packing plant. The cause had not been determined.
In Oakland, Calif., twenty blocks of West Oakland had to be evacuated for escaping ammonia gas from a burst pipe at a fertilizer plant while unloading the ammonia from a tank car, as many became ill and to be hospitalized. Firemen said that the tank car contained enough ammonia to kill everyone in the area.
In Gastonia, N.C., a man was charged with kidnaping and assault on a female in the attempted rape of a young woman outside a diner. An accomplice was still at large.
In Wilson, N.C., a legal challenge was filed to the State's ABC law, claiming it violated the State Constitution for not providing means of appeal of State ABC Board decisions. The complainant claimed that her beer license was therefore revoked illegally by the Board.
In Charlotte, the Grand Jury identified certain areas of the city, including Palmer's Alley, which law enforcement needed to target to eliminate heavy incidence of crime.
The City Council voted 4 to 3 to end rent control in the city on May 1. It would be up to Governor Kerr Scott then to ask Housing Expediter Tighe Woods to approve the termination.
In Pittsburgh, a would-be robber was told by a store proprietor that he was wasting his time. After he looked in the cash drawer and found it empty, he nodded and walked out in frustration. `
On the editorial page, "Republican-Dixiecrat Scheme?" tells of U.S. News & World Report speculating on a possible way to realign the electorate behind the Republicans, to select General Eisenhower as their nominee, that with great popular appeal and presumed acceptance by dissident Southern Democrats, he could win. The Dixiecrats would also then nominate General Eisenhower as their nominee, hoping to carry the South. The General would only need 77 electoral votes from the South beyond the 189 accumulated by Governor Dewey in 1948. Adding Arkansas, Texas, and Georgia to the four states carried by Governor Thurmond in 1948 would be enough.
Senator George Aiken of Vermont did not like the scheme, believed that it would destroy all hope of the GOP winning in future presidential elections, as it would cost the Republicans their stronghold in the Northeast, where feeling was strongly against being aligned with Dixiecrats.
A drawback to the scheme was that Congressional Dixiecrats would have to retain their party identity as Democrats to retain their seniority and obtain committee chairmanships, so could not easily support a coalition candidate. Furthermore, Senator Taft, who had fought long and hard for the nomination, would not easily hand over the party mantle to General Eisenhower.
"The Latta Park Decision" finds wisdom in the decision of the City Council to move the proposed youth recreation center a quarter mile, pleasing area residents who were complaining of the potential for increased noise and traffic in their neighborhood. It hopes the new center would serve the residents as well as the Hawthorne Lane center, in which case there would be substantial improvement to the city.
"A Good Newspaper" tells of the Atlanta Journal, founded in 1883, marking its tenth anniversary since Governor James Cox of Ohio—the Democratic nominee for the presidency in 1920 with FDR as the vice-presidential nominee—bought the newspaper, doubling its circulation, advertising revenue, and its personnel in the interim. It had practiced "clean, courageous journalism" and stood by the creed of Mr. Cox, to tell the truth with intellectual honesty and not engage in the bad faith practice of trying "by vague and pointless preachment and evasion to please everyone".
While many politicians were displeased with the newspaper, the public was quite pleased and that, it finds, was what counted.
A piece from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, titled "McGrath Enlightens", finds weird the reasoning of Attorney General J. Howard McGrath in his defense, as explained to U.S. News & World Report, of the reasoning behind the antitrust suit against A&P stores, that he was protecting the consumer and that efficiency in serving the consumer was no defense to violation of the law, that lower prices were being used to drive out competition, the antithesis of efficiency as higher prices would eventuate from reduced competition. He did not allege that A&P's low prices had resulted in higher prices, but that it would result in higher prices charged by competitors as they were required to purchase from suppliers at higher prices under A&P's monopolistic practices.
The piece finds it fanciful to assume that a chain which supplied ten percent of the country's groceries could impact 90 percent of the public, the number Mr. McGrath had asserted would benefit from the suit.
A piece from the Congressional Quarterly finds about half of the 45 issues on which both Democrats and Republicans had campaigned in 1948 to have been passed in the first session of the 81st Congress. It provides a list.
Drew Pearson tells of a significant development with the Justice Department regarding John Maragon, five percenter and close friend to Presidential military aide Maj. General Harry Vaughan, that the top officials had given direction to the U.S. Attorney for D.C., prosecuting Mr. Maragon for perjury, that he should make no move without consulting them, not the usual course, as in the case of General Benny Meyers, convicted and sentenced to prison without consultation. Mr. Maragon's case had been referred to Justice by Senator Clyde Hoey after the hearings before his Investigating subcommittee regarding the five percenters. But three months had passed without action. It appeared that Mr. Maragon's White House ties were helping him escape justice.
The Justice Department was very reluctant to initiate a case against those in high places in the Government, left it to Congressional committees or newspapers to ferret out the facts on which prosecutions were based. He cites the cases of Alger Hiss, former Congressman Andrew May, Congressman J. Parnell Thomas, former HUAC chairman, and General Meyers, all indicted and prosecuted based either on committee hearing testimony or, in the case of Mr. Thomas, revelation by Mr. Pearson of his graft in receiving kickbacks of staff salary.
Other cases never had been prosecuted despite evidence of wrongdoing. The Government was being overcharged for Arabian oil during the war by the Navy with the complicity of some admirals, and yet there was no prosecution. Self-dealing by Senator Elmer Thomas of Oklahoma was evident as he traded on commodities in anticipatory response to his own floor speeches, and yet he had never been indicted.
Marquis Childs tells of the U.S. leading with a glass chin in terms of showing to the world a united effort in the cold war. He cites as examples the recent flak from HUAC's investigation of former Major G. Racey Jordan's allegations that FDR aide Harry Hopkins and former Vice-President Henry Wallace had been seeking to expedite shipment of atomic materials to Russia during the war, denied by Lt. General Leslie Groves, military head of the Manhattan Project. He finds the hearings to have been the result largely of party politics, to smear the memory of FDR. He thus seeks to put the matter in the perspective of the war, when Russia was an ally of the U.S. and Britain.
The Russians, he reminds, killed and wounded millions of German soldiers and suffered as many as ten million casualties in the process. Thus, it was normal to try to send to them as much war materiel as possible through lend-lease to aid in their effort. He finds this to have been "leading through strength", contrasting with the current stance.
Some things during the postwar phase were, in hindsight, somewhat foolish, as in 1946 allowing Soviet engineers into the country to study water systems of the large cities. The engineers received blueprints of the major water systems, including those of New York and Los Angeles, providing potentially valuable information in the event of war.
Espionage by the Russians in America was a grim fact for which 50 million dollars was being spent to combat it through the CIA.
The third phase of Russo-American relations came in response to the Soviet goal of world domination, inaugurating the cold war. The U.S. had a strong moral position in the cold war as it had demonstrated to the world that it was willing to work peaceably and honestly with the Soviets.
But such investigations triggered by haters who raked over the past, while achieving headlines, also undermined this strong position, doing no evident good in the process.
Robert C. Ruark, in Los Angeles, finds that when he was in San Francisco, he owned it, felt a part of the community, but when he was in Los Angeles, "the city of the turkey-furter and the gentian-violet sunglasses", he was "scared to death", wished for his mother's hand to hold or at least a seeing-eye dog.
It was a town where one felt that everyone had unlisted phone numbers and that all the houses were surrounded by charged wire and fierce mastiffs. While the people he met were as pleasant as elsewhere, "the strange people stare at you hostilely, as if you intended to cut into their racket."
The drugstores appeared dressed for a premiere and hamburger stands were too gaudy for his digestion. The burlesque dancers looked like Hedy Lamarr and appeared also sore that they were not. The only simple folks he met were actors, directors, and writers, who stayed at home for the most part because, he believes, they, too, were scared.
What frightened him most were the Cadillacs. Driving a Ford or Buick into a parking lot meant not receiving a claim ticket from the attendant. Cadillac drivers got a definite identification card to prevent the wrong person from claiming their car.
The only person he knew who did not
own a Cadillac was Richard Widmark, a mild-mannered man who was once
cast as a villain
Mr. Ruark thinks he might be able to
conquer his fear of Los Angeles on this visit, but could, if things
got too rough, buy a sailor suit
A letter writer finds that the doubt on the part of some whites that they were in fact superior to blacks had provided the impetus for Jim Crow and violence to enforce it. He finds that the warning of segregationists that all the arms in the world could not end segregation in the South was better stated as all the arms in the world not being able to prevent blacks from defying Jim Crow.
A letter writer finds the National Association of Manufacturers to be working for its principles and not its pocketbook as it continued to devote its resources to defiance of the Roosevelt-Truman doctrine despite manufacturers having earned record profits under the two Democratic administrations.
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