The Charlotte News
Thursday, January 19, 1950
TWO EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President, at a press conference, refused comment on whether he would order full production of the hydrogen bomb. The Atomic Energy Commission was already working on preliminary steps for production of the bomb. He said that he was not considering direct negotiations with the Russians on the hydrogen bomb and that resigning AEC chairman David Lilienthal had not volunteered, as reported, to go to Russia as an emissary.
The President also stated that, in spite of a report by the Senate Investigating subcommittee released the previous day, reprimanding Presidential military aide Maj. General Harry Vaughan for allowing John Maragon access to the White House and its influence in procuring Government contracts for Mr. Maragon's clients, there would be no change in the status of General Vaughan.
Regarding civil rights and the newly proposed House rule designed to return to the procedures enabling committees to bottle up legislation, the President said that he had assurances from Rules Committee chairman Adolph Sabath of Illinois that the rule change would be defeated on the House floor. He also said that he and Speaker Sam Rayburn were in agreement on legislative strategy regarding the civil rights bills.
Speaker Rayburn also expressed confidence that the rule change would be defeated, that the matter would be settled the following day. He said that Republicans wanted the rule change to "sabotage" the President's whole program.
The President said, in response to a reporter's question, that former Secretary of State James Byrnes, a critic of the Fair Deal, and prospective gubernatorial candidate in South Carolina, was "a free agent to do as he damn pleases."
He would likely be saying something similar, yet even more colorful, regarding the new "President" coming into office in 2017.
The President also stated that NLRB general counsel Robert Denham had acted on his own in seeking an injunction for unfair trade practices against John L. Lewis and the UMW to force resumption of the five-day work week, cut by Mr. Lewis to three days since December 1 as a wedge to force companies to increase wages and contributions to the welfare and pensions fund. The President continued to assert that the three-day week had not produced a sufficient national emergency to invoke Taft-Hartley's injunctive provisions. The President was not considering removal of Mr. Denham, as urged by labor groups in the wake of Mr. Denham's recent public comments critical of the NLRB for being biased toward labor.
In New York, Russia walked out of a secret six-power discussion of atomic energy control at the U.N., in protest of the presence of Chinese Nationalist delegates. The group included the Security Council's permanent Big Five plus Canada. The Soviets had engaged in such protests recently in all U.N. committees where the Nationalists were represented, most recently in the "little assembly" which met year-round. The Soviets also boycotted the U.N. Trusteeship Council meeting in Geneva on the same basis.
In Taipei, Formosa, the Chinese Nationalists declared their blockade of Communist-held Shanghai a big success and said it would be extended to the South China coast, from the border of Indochina to Yangchiang, 150 miles southwest of Hong Kong. They warned craft not to enter the area, as they would be hit by "heavy and continuous air assaults". The Nationalists claimed to have destroyed a Communist assault force of 2,000 vessels, principally junks, assembling on the Luichow peninsula presumably for invasion of Formosa.
Admiral Louis Denfeld, who had been forced out as chief of Naval operations for not being supportive of military unification, announced that he had requested retirement rather than accept command of the Atlantic fleet. He had no comment on a document produced by Senator Joseph McCarthy which purportedly showed that the President had commissioned him for a two-year extension as chief of Naval operations, just before firing him.
In Boston, a man who claimed to have driven the getaway car in the robbery of a Brinks facility of 1.5 million dollars in cash and checks, turned himself in to police, who found a pistol and a thousand rounds of ammunition but no credit for his story. The man had been an orderly in a mental hospital in New Jersey and, according to a relative, had been disturbed since his service in the Navy during the war, after which he had been a mental patient for a time. He led authorities to a house where he said the robbers left the loot, but the police only found the pistol and rounds of ammunition. Seven men had been picked up for questioning during the night, but none provided clues to the perpetrators of the robbery.
In Wadesboro, N.C., a man accused of murdering a man from New York, testified in his trial that he had killed the man but had acted in self-defense when the deceased attacked him with a knife and an iron rod. He then took the rod and struck back, killing the man. He and his brother then had decided to go through the man's pockets and take his money as they drank whiskey for a half hour, then threw the body in the water and drove to their home in Rockingham. He insisted, however, that his brother, a co-defendant in the case, was not involved in the incident.
In Charlotte, despite rainy weather, the Shriners of the Oasis Temple in the city held their annual meeting this date and installed new officers, including John Roberts as new chief potentate.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop, appearing on the front page, discuss the prospect of the hydrogen bomb and its terrible implications to the world. It would be so, irrespective of the President's decision to build the bomb on an accelerated basis, as the Soviets would not shrink from the task, as one of their physicists was one of the leading experts on the H-bomb's major problem, the behavior of materials at extreme temperatures. The inevitable development of the bomb would render obsolete most political and strategic assumptions operative in foreign policy. It would represent the final "suicidal triumph" of man, harnessing the means by which the sun produces energy, nuclear fusion rather than fission. The H-bomb was made possible by the brief heat generated by the A-bomb, thus utilizing fission as its trigger to produce fusion, releasing a thousand times more energy than the Hiroshima bomb.
The H-bomb was open-ended, with no limitation on its power, setting it apart from the A-bomb. It thus allowed for the theoretical prospect of building a bomb big enough to blow up the earth. At the time of the Hiroshima blast, there was concern expressed of either blowing up, via chain reaction, or rendering poison the earth's atmosphere, but the scientists had reassured that it would take 10,000 such bombs to do so. But ten hydrogen bombs, at a thousand times the force of the Hiroshima bomb, might accomplish the fact.
Byproducts, fallout, released by the H-bomb would be different, however, from the A-bomb and might be controllable in some measure. The AEC was studying the issue. But it was impossible to get away from the psychological idea of the incredible increase in potential destructive force released upon the world and its threat to human existence.
A paradox was thus produced whereby it was intolerable to allow the Soviets to build such a bomb while the U.S. refrained or followed a slow pace in doing so but was also not tenable to launch an arms race with such terrible weapons. All of the current strategic assumptions would be rendered obsolete, as they did not provide any method of circumventing this dilemma.
In New York, actress Ethel Waters
On the editorial page, "The Heart of Good Government" tells of the Institute of Government reports, anent consolidation of City and County services to bring about thrift and efficiency, finding that having good personnel was the key to better government.
Yeah, and that goes for the Federal
level, with even greater force. It's too bad that the Idiot being
inaugurated in Washington, without any mandate from the people, has
decided to play politics and nominate billionaires and millionaires,
without qualification experientially, aptitudinally or attitudinally for the jobs in most instances, to be heads of
the various departments comprising his Cabinet. It is going to be the
worst presidency in the history of the country, following one of the
better presidencies in our history. One only need listen to the
Idiot's only post-election, Agnew
We shall miss President Obama as a nation, as an inclusive unifier and a truly compassionate President, mating substance to the mere rhetoric of compassion—as will become increasingly apparent as the months pass from the end of his Presidency. He managed to accomplish important strides forward, despite having to work with one of the worst, most recalcitrant and strident Congresses in our nation's history in the last two years in office, and the worst, most do-nothing House majority in history during the last six years.
We predict that within six months to
a year, the new "President" will have approval ratings in
single digits and that there will be howls from large segments of the
population for his impeachment and removal from office for his many
pre-election crimes, including fraud, solicitation of a bribe from Blondie Bondi in Florida to stop investigation into same, and probable collusion
So welcome to the presidency, you divisive Idiot, and we hope to attend your impeachment in short order. You shall not rule this nation, Boy. We do not accept Fascist bullies. You had better read up on American history a little bit, rather than paying so much attention to balance sheets and gold accouterments for your hotels.
And that is not "fake news",
Dummy, that which your little Breitbart charlatans around you are so
good at producing to convince your uneducated, mindless minions of
the supposed truth of your daily lies, manifestly false though they
are to anyone with an ounce of common sense and reasonably attentive
Impeach this fool before he destroys the earth, if not through action, through inaction on the environment—as Antarctica slowly breaks apart at an arithmetic pace and raises the sea level by as much as four inches.
Our National Nightmare begins—with a bipolar "President" who does not appear to realize that he stands poles apart from the majority of Americans on nearly every issue of substance, insofar as he has actually enunciated any stands on serious issues, as opposed to whipping up childish enthusiasm for storefront Kristallnacht-type sloganeering intended to appeal to imbeciles, selling them the notion of "return of the government to the people"—the volkssturm, while obviously planning return of the government to the corporations and private, moneyed interests.
How long it will last is dependent entirely on the people, acting collectively, making their voices heard in Washington. It will not be a function of the weak-kneed, fat bullies who "elected" the Jerk. It is no time for quiet and silent contemplation. Our democracy depends on positive action. Fascism cannot be allowed to take root, as it would take decades then to eradicate. And we do not have decades remaining until Nature takes its course with all of us on the planet.
Filibuster any Supreme Court nominee he puts forward until we get a proper liberal, in the tradition of this country. And if that takes four years, so be it, as it is the Republicans who started this sinister game, unprecedented in American history not even to hold hearings on a Presidential nomination to the Supreme Court. After all, the Chief Justice, himself, said that the Court can get along fine with only eight Justices. Sine die.
You forgot one critical ingredient of governance, Neanderthal Republicans, that, despite having titular control of the branches of Government, in a democracy, you must have the backing of a solid majority of the people to get anything done. And you have only alienated, with your divisive rhetoric, your backward-looking, negative programs to benefit only the wealthy, and your obstructionism of progress, the greater masses of Americans.
The fact that a dictator as Vladimir Putin proposes to lecture Americans to "get over" the "loss" of the Presidency, while praising his pal, the Idiot, underscores the problem and lends force to the proposition that the new Government is Fascist, not merely tending toward it, but crossing the line into it. We shall not abide it. Mussolini and Hitler, among others, found out in due course that governance by bullying does not last, produces only hardship, not only for the bullied masses, but also, in the end, for the bullies.
"Revaluation Decision" praises the decision of the City Council and County Commissioners to conduct a survey aimed at revaluation of properties in the community, to bring valuations closer to reality and thereby raise revenue for future projects slated for the coming decade and to remedy inequities in the current valuations.
A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled "What We're Missing", finds that whereas Asheville and Raleigh had municipal facilities to bring to town such events as the Wake Forest-Tennessee basketball game in Asheville, and pianist Oscar Levant and "The Barber of Seville" performed by a national opera company in Raleigh, Greensboro was without. It recommends planning for an auditorium and coliseum to make Greensboro competitive with these venues, as Charlotte was planning for its future development.
Greensboro would open its auditorium and coliseum in 1959.
Drew Pearson explains in detail the process behind the scenes in the 9 to 2 House Rules Committee vote, effected by a coalition of Southern Democrats and Republicans, to recommend the rescission of the rule passed the previous year allowing for discharge from the Committee of any bill pending for 21 days if brought up for a vote by a committee chairman on the floor of the House. The purpose of the change was effectively to undermine democracy by preventing floor debate and a vote on specific bills, especially aimed at civil rights legislation, particularly the FEPC bill.
The Children's Bureau had found that about 100,000 children were in adult jails across the nation in 34 of 48 states, sometimes housed with convicted murderers and rapists. In Kentucky, a 13-year old runaway boy was housed in a two-cell log jail for four days with a laughing maniac; in South Carolina, a 10-year old black boy was sentenced to the State Penitentiary; and in Fairfax, Va., across the Potomac from Washington, 14 and 15-year old boys were sentenced to work on the road gangs. In Virginia, 2,650 children were in adult jail facilities in 1948.
Studies showed that such housing only served as a school for crime, with inmates coming out more likely to engage in further criminal conduct. By contrast, the Big Brother program had saved 5,000 boys from crime, with only a 7 percent rate of recidivism, at a cost of only $45 per year per boy, compared to $2,000 per year to house a juvenile in a reformatory.
Marquis Childs tells of the Soviets having been remarkably quiet, especially in Berlin, during the previous three months at geographic points where they interfaced with the West. It stood in contrast to the scene two years earlier when the series of incidents began which ended with the blockade of Berlin in June, 1948. Against this background of quiet, the President was reducing foreign spending significantly, with the proposed ERP budget being trimmed by a billion dollars to 3.1 billion, and with Congress set to trim it even more. But trimming the Marshall Plan budget below 2.5 billion would slow European recovery just as it was beginning to be effective.
The question then was begged as to what would happen after the scheduled end of the Marshall Plan in June, 1952. Paul Hoffman, administrator of ERP, wanted free trade in Europe, with a special fund created out of ERP which would make exchange of European currencies possible, removing a major obstacle to free trade. At the same time, Mr. Hoffman and his assistants were working to end the dual price system whereby one price was charged to domestic customers and a higher price to those abroad, as in the case of British coal.
Even if implemented, however, Europe would likely continue to need American aid after mid-1952.
A Western European federation would likely fall under German dominance, a position France could not accept. It would only work if the U.S. were a member of the union, a beginning of which was taking place through the military assistance program. But such participation had to occur also on the economic side. So something akin to a NATO customs union needed to be formed. In the past, such a bold new step was preceded by committees designed to educate the public to the need for such an organization, and, as well, the existence of a menacing foreign enemy.
Now, with the Soviets being quiet, such an imminent threat was not present, and the problem was therefore out of sight, out of mind.
Robert C. Ruark, in Melbourne, continues his report on the wildlife of Australia threatening the human population, in what sounds as a series of tall tales. He tells of a twelve-foot shark leaping into a boat with three fishermen and beating them badly with its thrashing tail; a tame black eagle, with an eight foot wingspan, getting out of its cage and attacking a Sydney mother and small child; the emus chasing sheep completely from a water hole; and a swarm of thirst-maddened rats jostling citizens of a small outback town from the sidewalks, frightening the dogs.
On the large sheep and cattle ranches, the rabbits, kangaroos, pigs and emus worked together, as the 'roos and emus kicked holes in the fences to let through the rabbits and the wild pigs rooted holes under the fences and tore up the terrain.
He tells of an adventure in an
automobile dodging stump holes and grazing trees, as he and his
companions went "kangaroo coursing"
"We wound up with two kangaroos, seven dead wild hogs, two live wild pigs, 14 wild ducks, two live wild swans, 56 rabbits and a frilled lizzard the size of an alligator. Nobody was hunting either." In doing so, they utilized two airplanes, a pickup truck, a sedan, a jeep, a horse and buggy, saddle horses and their legs, accomplishing damage to nearly all of these means.
During a nighttime coursing for kangaroos, one man of the party fended off with one foot a wild boar "as big as a bear", while he caught two of the boar's offspring, arriving back at the truck one step ahead of the angry mother and father boars.
A letter writer praises the work of a woman who had, since 1946, promoted facilities for the treatment and proper education of cerebral palsy victims, with concrete results in the community.
A letter writer finds the problem in China to be its failure to honor God, bringing God's wrath upon the nation.
A letter writer, head of an auto parts company, provides an open letter he had sent to Chief of Police Frank Littlejohn, thanking him for his police officers.
He had auto parts to sell.
Framed Edition
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