The Charlotte News

Saturday, February 19, 1949

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that in Berlin, Russia set up a no man's land through the center of the city following several shooting incidents, including at least two fatalities, along the sector border. Control points and "danger zones" around them were established, from which pedestrians and loiterers were banned. The latest fatality had occurred the previous day when a fleeing drunken motorist was shot to death by Soviet-controlled police before he could reach the American zone to which he fled. Two bystanders had been struck by stray bullets in another incident the previous day.

Certain developments in East Berlin suggested that a change in monetary currency was in the offing.

The Soviet Commandant, Maj. General Alexander Kotikov, issued a decree which stated that "people's judges" would be appointed to the Soviet sector courts. These judges did not have to be lawyers and would be selected for their "common sense and their moral and political qualifications".

We know of a few places in the United States which essentially do the same thing to this day, even in North Carolina. And the "morality" is highly questionable, even if the "political qualifications" are indisputable.

In Prague, two Czech students charged with spying for the U.S. were hanged, following conviction with others the previous November.

In Coventry, England, fourteen persons, including three Americans, died in a plane crash when an RAF training plane collided with a British European Airways passenger airliner, en route from London to Renfrew, Scotland

A distress signal was sent from a ship somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean this date, saying, "They are trying to kill me." An Army transport received the message and the Coast Guard was attempting to determine its origin.

Congressman John Rankin, chairman of the Veterans Committee, was going to use a new rule to get his pension bill for veterans before the full House for a vote. The rule was designed to prevent pigeon-holing of legislation in committees by allowing a committee chairman by motion to get a floor vote. The President opposed bringing the Rankin bill to the floor because he believed it too expensive in its current form, affording $90 per month pensions to all retired and disabled veterans.

Congressman Hamilton Jones of Charlotte released a statement saying that he favored Federal aid to education, as he had in the previous Congress.

In Cleveland, O., and Ann Arbor, Mich., four persons had died after using lithium chloride in lieu of salt, and it was believed that the deaths were related to the lithium chloride, a poison to a person on a salt-restricted diet. The Food & Drug Administration ordered the substance withdrawn from sale.

North Carolina Governor Kerr Scott criticized the House for voting to end the vehicle inspection program in the state.

Emery Wister of The News reports of the local Army and Air Force Recruiting Station conducting classes for enlisted men regarding court martial instructions. The top three men in the classes would be eligible to serve on the courts. The enlisted men would only serve if they were requested by the accused. Defendants had complained that they did not receive a fair trial from courts comprised solely of officers. So far, however, the enlisted men were said to be providing stiffer sentences than the officers.

The News resolves the mystery of "Miss X" for the week. The answer was actress Teresa Wright, correctly identified by a man the previous night, wrenching from the mouths of babes the following Christmas $50 which otherwise would have gone to the Empty Stocking Fund.

We, however, cry foul. Ms. Wright was born in New York, as the piece states. But on Monday, the initial clue, and the only clue which appeared on the front page all week, said that "Miss X" was born in New Jersey. Ms. Wright grew up in New Jersey, but there is a difference. That was a misleading clue and so we vote for complete disqualification of the winner and award of the $50 to the Empty Stocking Fund. This is wrong. We have nothing more to say. Why don't you take the children's clock away from them next time?

On the editorial page, "Lesson for Grown-ups" tells of the upcoming week being Brotherhood Week and counsels getting along with one's neighbors. The piece hearkens back to Sunday school training in which it had been taught that Jesus beckoned all, regardless of race, ethnicity, or social and economic station. What Jesus said applied to grown-ups as well as children.

"Dodging the Constitution" tells of a State Constitutional limit on county tax assessments of 15 cents for every $100. The previous fall, the people had defeated a proposed amendment to raise the limit to 25 cents. But a proposed bill would accomplish the same thing by establishing special funds for each category of expenditure. The editorial favors the maneuver to circumvent the old limitations, which, if left intact, would inhibit the county from performing its proper functions. The piece suggests that the people may not have understood the proposed amendment and voted against it for that reason.

"Tar Heel Communist" indicates its opposition to the proposal before the General Assembly outlawing the Communist Party in the state. The proposal, it offers, was of questionable constitutionality and, minimally, should await the outcome of the trials of the top twelve American Communist Party members under the Smith Act and a determination by the Supreme Court of that law's constitutionality. It also believes that such a law might do more harm than good by forcing Communists underground. It was better, it suggests, to have Communist leaders out in the open.

A piece from the Asheville Citizen, titled "Governor, Meet the Candidate", tells of Governor Kerr Scott, while campaigning a year earlier, having denounced the idea of his challenger Charles Johnson that a 100-million dollar bond issue referendum be held for the purpose of financing the building of rural roads, candidate Scott favoring instead first using all of the existing funds set aside for the purpose. Now, as Governor, he proposed a 200-million bond issue to build the roads. The piece finds the candidate and the Governor to be talking in different ways.

Drew Pearson describes his journey aboard the Merci Train to deliver its gifts to the forty-eight states and the District of Columbia, each to receive one loaded boxcar. He reflects back to his days after World War I riding through Yugoslavia in such boxcars, dubbed "forty and eight's" for their being able to handle forty men or eight horses. He had preferred to ride with the eight horses, for it assured a reasonably warm night, as one could sleep in the hay in front of the horses. The boxcars were being carried gratis by the railroads a distance of 70,700 miles, crisscrossing the country.

The President was starting to worry about the impact of deflationary pressures on the economy, causing rising unemployment. The major question would be whether prices would drop on basic materials, steel, aluminum, coal, electrical goods, automobiles and radios. Demand for these goods remained heavy. The President believed that the military buildup and the large Federal budget would act as hedges against any serious slump.

Marquis Childs comments on the report released by the Army detailing the spy network operating for the Soviets in Japan until the fall of 1941 when its principal pair of operatives, Richard Sorge, a German national, and Osako Hozumi, were caught by the Japanese and hanged. Mr. Childs had read all of the report and found it full of supposition and editorial comment, not an objective analysis of hard facts. It implicated journalist Agnes Smedley, who had spent many years in Japan, but offered nothing in support of the charge beyond the hearsay accusations of Mr. Sorge and Mr. Hozumi.

The report had been received from General MacArthur over a year earlier and the Army had offered no reason for the delay in its release other than that it had now been declassified and that some reporters had requested to see it.

Its haphazard presentation appeared contrary to respect for civil liberties and the right to be heard on a charge as serious as spying for a foreign government. It suggested itself as no way to defeat espionage. Instead, it was better to build up the country to meet the challenge of Communist aggression, rather than tearing down civil liberties.

Stewart Alsop discusses the proposed North Atlantic Pact and the discussions which had been held with Norway's Foreign Minister, as well as the determination of the degree to which the U.S. would commit to military support of the signatory nations in the event of foreign aggression. Mr. Alsop finds a rebirth of a form of isolationism in the Congressional resistance to both a prior commitment to go to war and even language which would connote a "moral" commitment.

The Scandinavian alliance of Norway, Denmark and Sweden, proposed by Sweden as a neutral alliance, could compromise the American base in Greenland, a dependency of Denmark. The Congress would not likely be willing to extend much military aid to such an alliance in the latter event. Such facts were behind the failure of the discussion on the Scandinavian Pact, prompting the Norwegian Foreign Minister to come to Washington to seek to join the North Atlantic Pact, provided adequate assurance of security against Russian pressure could be provided by the U.S. The U.S. had not, as had been rumored, sought to bully Norway into the Pact; indeed, the State Department had tried to dissuade the Norwegian Foreign Minister from coming to Washington.

Mr. Alsop regards the debate on the "moral" commitment issue to have missed the point. If the Soviets attacked one of the member nations, then it could be assumed that the U.S. would declare war very quickly. The real issue was the type of military aid which the U.S. would provide Western Europe in the meantime.

The prevailing view among American officials held that it was hopeless to try to equip Western Europe to resist the Soviet Army. Military aid in consequence would be in the nature of a pacifier for the Western European nations.

But another school of thought favored building up Western Europe with about 30 superior fighting divisions and providing decisive air superiority, a combined force which could resist the Russians long enough for mobilization of all of the North Atlantic Pact nations.

Congress would have to resolve these differing positions, with it maintained in mind that the Western European nations would understand the difference between token aid and the latter approach. But, he ventures, the Senate debate the previous Monday regarding semantics of the agreement, taking on the patina of Alice in Wonderland, did not bode well for the matter being determined intelligently.

A letter from the chairman of the Young Progressives of North Carolina tells of the State Budget Advisory Commission having advised cutting of the budget for the Greater University by 1.7 million dollars, but if followed, to require the University to raise tuition from $81 to $150 per year.

He thinks any tuition payment to be against the spirit and letter of the State Constitution and believes the Legislature ought increase the taxes on the "profiteering" corporations in the state rather than imposing more gasoline and cigarette taxes.

The University Student Legislature had passed a resolution opposing the rise in tuition and students were working to defeat it. He urges all citizens to write their State legislators asking for an appropriation for the University sufficient to obviate the necessity for the increase.

Listen here, $81 is quite enough to pay to go to college for a year. That $150 is tantamount to highway robbery. Why, that's close to six percent of the cost of a new Ford.

A letter from A. W. Black finds the ascription of Tom Fesperman on February 12 to Jack Woodford, author of Trial and Error, of having provided "the key to the secret of writing and selling" to be erroneous, even illusory, that there was no such key. Mr. Black offers that such works claiming to inform of how to prepare and sell a manuscript were not worth the paper on which they were printed. He says that skill in writing was acquired through practice.

Well, if anyone ought to know, Mr. Black, it is you. The time you have spent writing letters to The News could have been utilized in writing a volume the size of Gone With the Wind.

Also, in this instance, the ascription which you believed to have been supplied by Mr. Fesperman was actually just part of the title of the work, indicative of the fact that you never bothered to lay eyes on the book before condemning it, typical of your reactions generally.

A letter writer recommends that business quit squawking about raising the minimum wage to 75 cents per hour and get back to the "original American standard".

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