The Charlotte News

Saturday, June 4, 1949

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that in Paris at the Council of Foreign Ministers meeting, the four powers met behind closed doors in an effort to work out a four-power agreement on Berlin. Neither side was reported yet to have rejected the other's plan for a united city. The major barrier between them appeared to be the Russian-favored unilateral veto for any four-power control council overseeing city government decisions.

Meanwhile, in West Berlin, striking railway workers, whose primary demand was payment in Western marks, four times more valuable than Eastern marks, said that there were signs that the Russian-controlled railroad managers were moving to acquire Western marks by collecting fares in that specie on the elevated trains in the Western zone. The strikers proposed that the railway divide into eastern and western sectors to resolve the problem, with the eastern section doing business with the non-striking Communist union.

In China, two seasoned Communist armies were reported marching toward Canton with 600,000 men, closing in on Kishui, 300 miles away. The Nationalists had about 300,000 men to counter them. If Canton were to fall, the next Nationalist seat of government would likely be Chungking, guarded by 250,000 troops.

In Frankfurt, a former G.I. wanted to renounce his American citizenship and become a German citizen. He had been charged with illegally entering Germany. Despite pleas by U.S. officials and his mother, the young man was determined to become a German citizen, as he said he had fallen in love with Germany during his 20 months of Army service there. He had no money or ration cards and the penurious state, American officials hoped, would soon drive him homeward.

In New York, a U.S. official said that the Polish ship on which Communist Gerhard Eisler had stowed away before being discovered in Britain, where British officials refused to extradite him on two U.S. convictions, might be seized. It was under Government control at present, upon docking in New York for the first time since carrying Mr. Eisler, who was now in East Germany. Another official, from the INS, said that there was no plan to seize the ship, that it was only undergoing routine inspection.

HUAC would start an investigation Monday of Russian efforts to obtain military secrets from Bell Aircraft at Buffalo, N.Y. HUAC officials said that the witnesses to be called from Bell were "loyal Americans" approached by Russian officials for the purpose, then pretended to accept the proposal, while alerting U.S. security officers.

In New York, former Vice-President Henry Wallace called "shocking" the jailing for contempt of three defendants out of the eleven top American Communists on trial for violations of the Smith Act. The American Labor Party called the action of Judge Harold Medina "judicial tyranny" and a "gross abuse of power". The Civil Rights Congress called it an attempt to "stymie the defense". The latter was planning to stage a protest demonstration on Monday. The initial contempt citation, against defendant John Gates, occurred because he refused to answer questions regarding who had assisted him in preparing a publication. The other two citations followed from spontaneous reactions to the initial finding of contempt, one defendant standing up and blurting out, "Lynching," and the other saying that he had seen fairer justice in police courts.

The President appointed two more members to the three-member mediation panel for labor disputes at atomic energy plants, completing the appointments. The appointments, said White House press secretary Charles G. Ross, had no particular significance in timing, though they came just ahead of the scheduled walkout at Oak Ridge on the following Thursday.

Efforts were being made in the Senate to attract support for a compromise version of the Administration's labor bill, but its proponents believed more support would be needed for passage. Senators Harry F. Byrd of Virginia and Allen Ellender of Louisiana, however, described the added support as "trifling". Other Democratic Senators, Matthew Neely of West Virginia, James Murray of Montana, and Claude Pepper of Florida, believed that the bill ought not be changed at all.

In Moundsville, W. Va., six of the fourteen escaped convicts from the State Penitentiary had been caught. Two had been captured in Powhatan, O., while four others were captured six miles from Moundsville earlier in the day, one by an alert store owner when the convict entered to buy food for the three other escapees waiting nearby. Two or three more had fled into the hills near Powhatan.

In Durham, N.C., Duke University officials were not commenting on a report published by the Carolina Times, black newspaper in Durham, that a majority of the faculty of the Duke Divinity School had voted in favor of admitting black students. A petition from the school's students had been presented a year earlier seeking such a change in admission policy. The final decision would rest with the Duke Board of Trustees.

The chances of Mecklenburg County obtaining a second seat in the State Senate were slim prior to 1951, according to State Attorney General Harold McMullen, as the matter was addressed properly to the General Assembly, next meeting in 1951, rather than to the courts under the State Constitution apportionment section, which allowed, since 1941, by current populations, Guilford and Mecklenburg two Senators each.

Tom Fesperman of The News tells of a relatively small turnout of 37,000 registered voters in Mecklenburg County for the election on the two bond issues, one for 200 million dollars for rural roads and the other for 25 million dollars for school construction. During the afternoon and evening, radio stations statewide would provide hourly updates on the voting as it progressed. Vote early and often.

On page 8-A, the details and records of the News-Eastwood Golf Course Hole-in-One Tournament are provided. It is open to all comers. Sign up and shoot.....

On the editorial page, "Move to 'Unbottle' Charlotte" tells of the Charlotte Planning Commission recommending a program to eliminate railroad grade crossings in the city for their causing traffic bottlenecks. The effort had been ongoing since 1854, as reporter Dick Young had written on the front page earlier in the week. New Mayor Victor Shaw had made the issue a campaign promise.

The reason for the delay was the cost of building railroad underpasses and overpasses. But the present City Council and its successors would see to it, it ventures, that Charlotte would become "unbottled".

Well, what is that going to do to the rest of the state? One big Charlotte? Charlotte should be kept in the bottle.

"Dr. Spaugh and His Church" tells of the dedication of a new sanctuary for the Little Church on the Lane, the only Moravian congregation in Charlotte, coinciding with the 25th anniversary of the ministry of Rev. Herbert Spaugh. The Church had been founded with eleven members in 1920.

Dr. Spaugh had been active in the community and a member of the School Board for 12 years, had written since 1932 his daily column, "The Everyday Counselor", for The News, appearing in several Southern newspapers. He also directed an annual Easter program for the city.

"Language on the Loose" tells of liberal English teachers increasingly permitting such formerly taboo semantic constructs as the split infinitive, "O.K.", interchangeability of "further" and "farther", save when "moreover" was intended, reserved for the former, and dispensing entirely with "anybody's else" for "anybody else's".

The piece agrees with the trend, believes that the language could use some loosening in an age of hip talk, notwithstanding inevitable complaint. It recommends calling such opposition, "Ickies!"

"Ickes!" was probably intended, but that's a matter of semantics, if not orthography either at the editorial desk or in the typesetter's tray.

A piece from the Louisville Courier-Journal, titled "Paul Robeson's Way", finds that Mr. Robeson was censoring spirituals as he sang them, based on Marxist dogma. "Water Boy", he had said, was capitalistic and "Old Man River", distasteful for expressing a view on equality he could not support. He had rewritten some of the words to suit his own views.

The effect, offers the piece, was ridiculous. It reminded of the Kremlin censoring the work of Dimitri Shostakovich because they heard in it bourgeois strains.

Drew Pearson tells of the eight top economists who were the brains behind the President's Council of Economic Advisers having produced a report for the three-man Council which they hoped would reach the President, unfiltered by the politics and competition between the three advisers. It told of a certain minimum deficit of two billion dollars for the coming fiscal year, even if the President would be successful in getting the Congress to pass his four billion dollar tax increase. The fixed expenses, defense, foreign aid, V.A. expenses, and other entitlements, comprised all except about six to eight billion dollars of the budget. And of that latter amount, consisting of civilian agency budgets, reclamation and farm programs, there was inadequate room to cut the necessary expenses to reach a balanced budget. Civilian agency budgets had been cut to the bone during the war.

Increasing taxes, according to these eight economists, whose opinions on the subject were unanimous, would deflate the economy by leaving consumers with less purchasing power. But trying to avoid the deficit by cutting the budget would also decrease the flow of money through the economy, both strategies therefore adding to an already slowing economy. They advised that the economy would be fine if a small deficit were allowed, avoiding a depression. But if either of the strategies were followed to avoid a deficit, a depression could be triggered.

Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas of California was taking on Senator Sheridan Downey of California in a memo being circulated to California leaders describing the Senator as a turncoat on his campaign promises. Whereas he had once championed the poor and elderly, he had recently held up money for 2.5 million elderly, 1.2 million dependent children, and 86,000 blind persons, based on his fight for the big power and corporate farming interests in California.

During the prior year, Senator Downey and his GOP friends had blocked a commissioner of reclamation from holding office on the stated reason that he was not an engineer, when in fact it was because he was enforcing the 160-acre limit on irrigation. When the House overruled them, Senator Downey threatened a filibuster in the Senate, holding up the aforementioned payments for two months.

Joseph Alsop relates of the B-36 controversy and investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee regarding possible conflict of interest in ordering the planes from Consolidated Vultee Corp., with which both Air Force Secretary Stuart Symington and new Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson had connections, the former as a friend to Consolidated chairman Floyd Odlum and the latter as a former board of directors member and attorney for the company.

But Generals Hoyt Vandenberg, Lauris Norstad, and Joseph McNarney had approved the airplane as the mainstay of the Air Force strategic bomber arsenal and so its selection had nothing to do with any improper interest. Their judgment had been based on the long-range capability of the aircraft premised on the prospect of intercontinental warfare.

Yet, the Joint Chiefs had not developed their primary strategy around intercontinental warfare for the belief that overseas bases could be used for strategic bombers. Thus, the question had arisen whether it would have been wiser to rely on the faster B-47 turbojet, albeit with shorter range. Another question was whether the B-36 properly fit the entire armed forces weapons system. Jets and guided missiles might be deployed soon which could make the B-36 vulnerable to attack, even at high altitude. There was also the question of whether the Air Force was becoming too reliant on bombers.

One of deceased former Secretary of Defense James Forrestal's primary contributions to the nation's defense was setting up a Weapons System Evaluation Group under the guidance of General John Hull, who had conducted the Eniwetok tests of the atom bomb in spring, 1948. This group, rather than the individual branches, could perform impartial tests of new planes and weapons, and should do so before large contracts were made. Then such controversies as that surrounding the B-36, started for purely partisan reasons by the Navy, would not arise.

He also urges that political contributions from companies wanting defense contracts should be eliminated.

James Marlow discusses the effort to craft a new labor bill, starting the following week in the Senate, and then, afterward, moving to the House. What would come of it was a mystery except that the President and labor would not get what they were after, repeal of Taft-Hartley and replacement of it with a modified version of the 1935 Wagner Act. The President had so promised during the campaign, but Republicans were opposed to that plan, as were enough Democrats to assure its defeat.

That which would occur, a modification of Taft-Hartley, remained clouded. Hearings had been held to craft a new bill nearly six months earlier without any firm resolution. There was even the chance that the House would not pass a bill this session, but that was not likely. Mr. Marlow concludes that the matter remained a puzzle.

A letter from the executive secretary of the North Carolina Motor Carriers Association tells of freight carrying trucks in the state paying sometimes over $1,000 per year for license tags, based on six percent of gross revenue from the truck, thus making possible the modern road system. Trucks throughout the country paid 762 million dollars in special taxes in 1946, the total cost of the states in building 40,000 miles of new roads. He seeks to correct the impression that trucks were responsible only for road wear and damage.

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