The Charlotte News

Monday, September 5, 1949

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President, in an address at the Allegheny County Fair in Pittsburgh, attacked the "selfish interests" opposing the Fair Deal and promised a fight to the finish to enact the program, that the "scare word campaign", the "trumped up slogans" as "statism", "collectivism", "socialism", and "welfare state", intending to "confuse the people and turn them against their own interests", would not succeed. Continuing, he said that the opposition had "a lot of paid agitators, promoters and publicity experts" making a "fat living by frightening the people in the higher income groups." Rather than costing too much, the proposed programs, he said, were of such importance that the nation could not afford not to have them. He denied that the 81st Congress was a "do-nothing" Congress as he had labeled the 80th, giving a list of things passed by the current Congress over opposition. He vowed to continue to fight for repeal of Taft-Hartley.

In Canton, China, the Nationalist Government received word that a bloodless revolt had taken place in Yunnan Province, enabling the Communists to take Kunming, and a fire of unknown origin but suspected as arson by Communists, had killed a thousand persons in Chungking, the last provisional capital on the mainland were the Communists to take Canton. French officials expressed confidence that the Communists in Yunnan Province would not cross the border into Indo-China.

In Castel Gandolfo, Italy, Pope Pius XII, in a radio address, denounced Communism expressly for the first time in his ten-year reign. His speech was designed to provide explanation for the excommunication of Communists.

Thus far, 326 persons had died in accidents since 6:00 p.m. Friday, 259 in auto accidents. A woman in California was killed when the car she was driving was struck by two freight trains simultaneously, traveling in opposite directions.

In Peekskill, N.Y., scores of people were injured and windows of hundreds of cars were shattered the previous night as concert-goers departed the area after hearing Paul Robeson sing. A group of protesters started the rioting. Fifty-four persons were treated for injuries and 14 were arrested on various charges, with another 40 or so taken into protective custody. The protesters threw stones, bottles, and other objects at the departing concert-goers, many of whom were women and children. About 250 State Troopers, mobilized by Governor Dewey, prevented violence at the concert. The attacks after the concert spread with increasing intensity from town to town as people departed the area. The Governor had declared the concert "pro-Communist" but said that the rights of free speech and assembly guaranteed to the concert-goers that their rights would be respected "however hateful the views of some of those who abuse" the rights.

Mr. Robeson had sung several songs to an audience of 10,000, while some 4,000 protesting war veterans and others outside the venue sought to shout him down. The police confiscated rifle bolts and bayonets from many of the veterans. Baseball bats and sticks were taken from many of those gathered to hear Mr. Robeson. Police had formed a human barricade between the opposing groups.

Emery Wister of The News tells of the Alcohol Tax Unit using sugar as a bait for moonshiners. When someone made a large purchase, the ATU began watching them. Dealers were required to notify the ATU of large purchases of sugar, more than 25 pounds either at once or in the aggregate closely spaced in time. The ATU also watched the market for large purchases of rye, corn, meal, and other ingredients of moonshine.

Hamlet, N.C., was about to get a mile-long stretch of modern highway with a four-foot sidewalk along Highway 77. Bet you can't wait to get out there and walk on that.

Vice-President Barkley, 71, visited again in St. Louis with Mrs. Carleton Hadley, a 37-year old widow.

In Atlantic City, N.J., 52 young ladies arrived for the Miss America contest the following Saturday. Miss Montana listed horseback riding as her special talent and Miss Nevada specialized in cow-raising. Pageant officials said that it would likely be the last year for livestock raising skills, lest "dog acts, live seals and tigers and lions" become part of the show.

In Cleveland, at the National Air Races, the weather for the afternoon was supposed to be windy and wet, with thundershowers in the forecast. The winner would receive $16,000, plus a $2,000 bonus if the speed record of 396 mph were broken. Bill Odom, who would be killed this date in the races, had won the Sohio race Saturday with an average speed of 388 mph.

In Cap Gris Nez, France, Jose Cortinas of Cuba gave up on his third attempt to cross the English Channel after about four hours of battling icy waves. Previously he had reached within three miles of Dover. He was the fourth swimmer to fail in two days after two Egyptians and a Frenchman had also failed to make the 19-mile crossing. In all, there had been 28 successful crossings in 410 attempts.

Shirley May France, 17, of Somerset, Mass., went for a trial swim during the morning but had not received the go-ahead from her father and manager on the Dover side.

We haven't got until Christmas.

On the editorial page, "Labor Day Theme" joins the New York Times in praise of Local 9 of the Retail Clerks International Association in New York City for having taken out an ad on the eve of Labor Day, sponsoring an essay contest in an effort to encourage more consumers to shop at Wanamaker's Department Store. The Times described the action as unique. In four years of existence, the union had never struck and had never had to invoke arbitration or mediation to reach contract agreements.

"Johnson Applies the Brakes" finds Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson preparing well for his presidential campaign for 1952 by his actions in three recent episodes, cutting of 135,000 civilian employees from the Defense Department to cut expenditures, telling the American Legion convention that he would continue his efforts to unify the armed forces despite criticism, and refusing military aircraft to members of Congress for round-the-world junkets. It thinks the actions, especially the latter, praiseworthy.

"Information Bureau" applauds the Red Feather Information Service set up as a central information bureau for both social services personnel and the public with respect to the community's social welfare facilities, private and public. Many people were unaware of the social services available.

A piece from the Atlanta Journal, titled "The South Needs Two-Party System", finds that the refusal of the DNC to seat five Dixiecrat members for their disloyalty to the President in 1948 was new evidence of the need for a two-party system in the South.

The Journal, though a supporter of the President in 1948, believes it better to leave the decision of national committee representatives to the states. Yet, it finds the DNC decision to be logical. The Dixiecrats chose to leave the party and thus had no legitimate complaint.

It suggests that the President's remarks that the Democratic Party was no longer a sectional party with the "tail wagging the dog" were even less calculated to promote unity than the actions of the DNC. Both parties tended to ignore the South because the Democrats saw no danger of it going Republican and the Republicans saw little chance of attracting the Southern vote.

Wayne Freeman, writing in the Greenville (S.C.) Piedmont, tells of two divergent factions in the state laying claim to the label "Democrat", thus producing confusion among the people. The factions were divided between pro-Truman and anti-Truman groups. Some were motivated by reluctance to cut ties with Democratic patronage or the risk of not being seated in Congress with the Democrats.

Being an independent in a one-party state provided little choice. He finds it possible that in the future there would be Democratic candidates aligned with the national party and States' Rights candidates who might or might not retain the "Democratic" label.

It was clear that the President, Attorney General Howard McGrath, and such liberal Senators as Hubert Humphrey were intent on making the Democratic Party a party of the "militant left". The States' Rights Party could not succeed outside the South. The party needed a positive program to succeed and showed little sign of developing it.

That left the Republican Party for the independent. Those who had been voting Democratic in the South were often more Republican in attitude than Democratic. To attract Southern Democrats, the Republicans might be influenced to develop a platform more attractive to Southerners than the recent liberal platforms under Thomas Dewey in 1944 and 1948.

He suggests that such a change might be years away but offered an eventual two-party system for the South. He recommends certain changes in South Carolina's election laws to make such a system possible.

Robert S. Allen, substituting for vacationing Drew Pearson, tells of William Green, president of AFL, about to be elected again as president for his 26th term. No union head was more highly regarded by Congress and the White House. At age 76, he had no intention of retiring.

Senator Elbert Thomas of Utah, chairman of the Labor Committee, considered the effort to repeal Taft-Hartley dead for this Congress. It would have to be battled out in the 1950 campaigns.

Philip Murray, president of CIO, intended to spare no mercy in getting rid of Communists from the organization at the upcoming Cleveland convention. Leftist leaders and unions had either to toe the mark or get out.

Service was slow in the Senate dining room when the minimum wage bill was being debated because the waiters received only 45 to 55 cents per hour plus tips, below the new 70-cent minimum wage just passed.

The UMW welfare fund was in trouble as it was running in the red by 16.6 million dollars. For the time being, it was solvent because of a 29 million dollar reserve. But John L. Lewis had to find a way to increase the fund's income or cut benefits to prevent the fund from going broke by year's end.

A recorded speech by Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey to a group of AFL leaders had become a best seller disc in labor circles, as more than 300 transcriptions had been sold to AFL organizations at $5 apiece.

Marquis Childs takes Labor Day to discuss the labor situation in light of the United Steelworkers and steel companies seeking to resolve their dispute before the President's fact-finding board. Both the Communists on the CIO left and the anti-Communists, represented by Walter Reuther and UAW, were interested in the outcome. The Communists were likely to be ousted from the CIO at their convention in Cleveland. Walter Reuther and his brother Victor wanted to establish a labor party fashioned after the British Labor Party.

A shift in the labor movement had begun to take place from the traditional effort to obtain higher wages and benefits to the arena of politics, growing out of the decision to accept no compromise on repeal of Taft-Hartley.

The present, he posits, might be an interlude between the immediate past and the future which would have a different look for labor. By the following Labor Day, trade unions, he suggests, might be involved in unprecedented political activity, with the goal of achieving by political means what they had not been able to achieve in collective bargaining.

DeWitt MacKenzie is fed up with talk of war and rumors of war and so resigns himself to discussion of tuna fishing, that which some called "the acme of piscatorial sport." He had participated in the Maine Tuna Tournament at Boothbay Harbor and records the struggle of his boat mates with a 900-lb. tuna which got away in the end. He describes the experience, all nine minutes of it, in detail.

We have to wonder when this story, simmering in Florida for a few months, is going to obtain the same level of outrage nationally which the right has expressed for a year and a half now over use by former Secretary of State Clinton of a private home computer server for official e-mails, consistent with the practice of the two predecessor Secretaries of State, including in both instances transmittal of classified, i.e. non-public, information via that home server. Clearly, in this instance, a bribe in 2013 directly from the present Republican presidential nominee to the Florida Attorney General is involved and both ought be indicted for same. The matter does not involve mere payment for access or "pay to play", but plainly is a bribe to obtain termination of an investigation. She solicited the bribe, with full knowledge that she intended to drop an investigation into his activities if he reciprocated with his quid pro quo, and he, a New York-based businessman with no other ostensible political motivation to contribute to the re-election campaign of an obscure State Attorney General in Florida, responded while his "University" was under investigation by her office for fraud. Then, shortly after receipt of the $25,000 "campaign contribution", the investigation into the "University" suddenly disappeared. The Florida Attorney General says no, no, no. Yes, she did solicit the "campaign contribution", she admits. But, she interjects, it was not known to her that her office, of which she is the duly elected head, was investigating the present Republican nominee's "University" at the time.

Oh, really? We didn't know that. Thank you for that clarification.

You had better get a few gallons of Bondo, though, Ms. Florida Attorney General, because you have more than a few dents in your story. It looks like a total loss to us. The frame may, indeed, be bent beyond repair.

Who of the two leading candidates for the presidency is more trustworthy? Did the Republican presidential nominee who provided the bribe at the request of the Florida Attorney General not know that he was paying the contribution to her campaign to end an ongoing investigation? Surely, Connie Donny must have known about the fraud investigation in Florida into his "University".

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