The Charlotte News
Friday, January 27, 1950
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the U.S. and eight NATO allies, Britain, France, Italy, Norway, Denmark, and the Benelux countries, signed agreements this date to govern the flow of a billion dollars worth of U.S. military aid for the defense of Western Europe, with only the President's expected approval remaining to implement the secret plan. The division of aid among the countries was not known but France was the largest single recipient. The agreements required that the arms would be used against any attack and that no arms could be provided any other nation without the consent of the U.S. It also allowed the U.S. to obtain raw materials from each of the signatory nations on agreed terms, such as supply of uranium from the Belgian Congo. Each country also agreed to cooperate to foster international peace within the framework of the U.N.
Representative Richard Nixon, producing a fresh sheaf of documents supplied by Whittaker Chambers, demanded, in the wake of the conviction the previous Saturday of Alger Hiss for two counts of perjury, that investigation be renewed into Communist spy activities. Mr. Chambers had said, according to Mr. Nixon, that the eight new documents had come from the late Harry Dexter White, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, who had died in August, 1948, shortly after his HUAC testimony in which he denied ever supplying documents to Mr. Chambers. The hearings had been suspended during the Hiss case, initiated by indictment of a New York Grand Jury, before which Mr. Nixon had testified, in December, 1948. Mr. Hiss had been sentenced earlier in the week to five years in prison.
During a one hour speech before the House the previous day, Mr. Nixon denounced the attitude of the Administration on the Hiss case and the one-time intention of the Justice Department to pursue an indictment against Mr. Chambers instead. Mr. Nixon said that such action would have ruined any attempt to prosecute others as their principal accuser would have been a convicted perjurer. He said that the President had a memorandum dated November 25, 1945 indicating that the Soviets had an agent in the country who was an assistant to then former Secretary of State Edward Stettinius. Mr. Nixon believed that this person was Mr. Hiss, who had been an assistant to Secretary Stettinius at the time of the Yalta conference in February, 1945. (The report describes Mr. Stettinius as "then Assistant Secretary of State"—a position he had not held since August, 1943 when he became Undersecretary at the time of the resignation of Undersecretary Sumner Welles. Mr. Stettinius was appointed by FDR to be Secretary in late November, 1944 when Cordell Hull retired for health reasons. Whether this error was the fault of the report or Mr. Nixon is not clear.)
Civil rights champions in the House started delaying tactics against a cotton bill, in retaliation for Southern opposition to the FEPC bill. Congressman John Lesinski, chairman of the Labor Committee which had approved the FEPC bill, began the tactics by calling for a roll call to determine a quorum in the House, and said that he would do so whenever he found the body without a quorum during the day, set aside for debate on the cotton bill. Southerners had used the same tactics to delay calling up the FEPC bill, still stuck in the Rules Committee.
Northern and Western coal operators agreed to resume negotiations on a new contract with John L. Lewis the following Wednesday, after a court ruled on the petition by NLRB general counsel Robert Denham, complaining against Mr. Lewis and the UMW for unfair labor practices. Mr. Lewis had wanted the negotiations to begin at the same hour as the court hearing.
A motion by Senator Hubert Humphrey, before the Senate Labor Committee, to postpone consideration of a resolution of eight Republican Senators to ask the President to invoke the injunctive provisions of Taft-Hartley in the coal situation, carried 6 to 5. Senator Humphrey wanted the matter postponed pending the outcome of the contract negotiations.
In Washington, a silver-gray fox dashed about before coming to a halt on the Treasury lawn, a short distance from the White House, after coursing along 15th Street. Apparently, he wanted the right to vote or was protesting economic policy. He was eventually caught and caged by an Animal Rescue League agent.
In Edmonton, Alberta, a U.S. Air Force C-54 transport plane with 34 passengers and eight crewmen aboard was missing en route from Anchorage, Alaska, to Great Falls, Montana.
In New York, bandits robbed the home of showman Billy Rose, making off with a safe, furs, and jewels worth $100,000, but missed $250,000 worth of jewels being worn by his wife as she attended at the time of the robbery the premiere of the Broadway performance of Shakespeare's As You Like It with Katherine Hepburn.
In Marseille, France, half of Aga Khan's missing stolen jewels, $420,000 worth, turned up mysteriously deposited on a police station doorstep the previous night, wrapped in a brown paper package. The Moslem leader, father-in-law to Rita Hayworth, had been robbed on a Riviera highway near Cannes the previous August 3 by nine men brandishing tommy-guns. Six had been arrested in connection with the case. A letter accompanying the missing jewels said that a particular individual, who police said had driven the car used to perform the robbery, had the remaining jewels.
In Bridgeport, Conn., the State rested in the second degree murder case against a woman accused of euthanizing her father by shooting him as he lay in the hospital dying of cancer.
In London, poet Alfred Noyes was recovering from cataract surgery.
The Midwest and Great Lakes region had a sudden drop in temperature as a cold front moved in, stretching across most of the East and South. Citrus growers in Southern California had smudge pots going to prevent further damage to crops. The Pacific Northwest continued to be affected by bad weather conditions, including rain and snow. Heavy rains were threatening further damage in the flood beset region of the Ohio River.
Meanwhile, mild weather continued to
prevail east of the Appalachian Mountains, fooling flora and fauna
alike, as record high temperatures were recorded in several cities,
including 72 in Boston, 79 in Baltimore, 73.2 in Philadelphia, and
70.5 in New York City. In a Philadelphia zoo, groundhogs, turtles and
snakes came out of hibernation, and elsewhere in the city, girls sunbathed on rooftops. Bees
In Charlotte, Martha London of The News tells of an interview with Brig. General Frank Howley, who had for two years been the commandant of the U.S. sector of Berlin. General Howley believed that Berlin, despite its great cost in dollars, was worth the price provided the lessons learned would be heeded, that appeasement of the Russians would not work, that they wanted total economic and political control of the world. The Russians, he said, would not fight unless they could calculate "cold turkey" and know they could win, gauging their own ability and the ability and resolve of the U.S. to fight and win. The Soviet press had attacked the General, claiming that he was primarily responsible for the Soviet blockade of Berlin in 1948. Since leaving his post in Berlin the previous October, he had recently published Berlin Command. He criticized a review of the book by Delbert Clark, appearing in the New York Times the previous Sunday, which apparently had personally attacked him. The General would address the Executive Club in Charlotte this night.
On the editorial page, "Why the Extra $3,800 for Parking Meters?" tells of how the City Council spent an extra $3,800 for 400 new parking meters after usurping the role of the City Manager in so doing, resulting from a compromise purchase of 200 of one type of meter and 200 of another which was more expensive. The latter was not considered by the experts, including the City Manager, to be worth the additional $19 per meter, but the Council voted for them nevertheless.
The two types of meters are pictured for your convenience, that you may cut down the more expensive ones as you are confronted with them. Bring your own pipe-cutter. The more expensive one, however, is bigger and looks more daunting. You are more likely to pay it than the little, puny one for protection against the meter maid.
"Virginia's School Program" tells of the Virginia plan endorsed by new Governor John Battle to have the Commonwealth provide 45 million dollars for the localities to spend as they wished on schools. It was opposed in the Legislature by a State Senate leader who wanted to compel the localities to contribute forty percent of the total amount to be allocated for education. The latter plan was supported by the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
North Carolina's 50 million dollar school building program, half of which had been approved by the voters as a bond measure and the other half by the Legislature, did not involve matching funds with the localities. Before this funding, the counties had been responsible for providing school buildings. The people had determined to shift funding to the State. The State Board of Education was making sure that the State money was being spent wisely.
The piece suggests to Virginia such approval by the people and control by the State Board of Education to check what the Virginia State Senate leader saw as drift toward a "paternalistic state".
"Poor Little Rich Girl" tells of the nine-year old girl who did not wish to appear in movies for the fact that her mother had allegedly beat her for overeating and getting too fat for parts. Her mother was arrested and a custody hearing was taking place in Los Angeles.
It finds the case emblematic of the notion that most adults tangled up in Hollywood tinsel had little relation to the lives of the many millions who attended the movies. It wonders whether all of the children had to be as Shirley Temple with kewpie-doll expressions. If only a few dozen children in Hollywood were affected, it would not be so problematic, but it finds that the tendency spread to many mothers who tried to raise their daughters in the Shirley Temple mold.
Bill Sharpe provides several humorous clippings from newspapers around the state, defying summary. For instance, from the Waynesville Mountaineer came the piece on the man who introduced himself to a woman as "Owl", causing her to remark that she wished her name were so simple. The next day, she bumped into him again and said, "Good morning, Mr. Crow."
You get the picture.
One serious piece from the Laurinburg Exchange comments on how various groups in the society practiced the cold war in domestic matters with effect, creating dissension and unrest, making people "cynical, callous and calculating."
Drew Pearson tells of Senator Taft having been able to convince the Democrats of the Senate Labor Committee to water down a report which had been critical of the Taft-Hartley Act, leaving only an outline, in polite language, for a future investigation of the subject. The Democrats did not want to upset GOP support for a $135,000 appropriation to continue investigating labor-management relations. Mr. Pearson says that he had obtained a copy of the original report, which would not be released to the public, and proceeds to provide a synopsis of the excised portions, the most important of which dealt with the retardation of trade unionism in the South, often the result of violence orchestrated by employers against union organization efforts.
Several cases before the NLRB had been cited in the original report as proof, which he proceeds to discuss in detail, that of the Russell Manufacturing Co. of Alexander City, Ala., Anchor-Rome Mills, and American Thread Co. of Tallapoosa, Ga., all involving violence or threatened violence. Not all attempts to organize had been accompanied by such activity, but it was not uncommon for such efforts to be met with harassment. If the union filed charges, then the election for union certification was suspended until the charge was determined, meaning delay for at least 17 months while the NLRB heard the matter. That delay caused disintegration of the union organizing effort.
Senator Taft had successfully tailored the report to omit these matters and make Taft-Hartley look good in operation, while striking those provisions which made it appear ineffective. The President had planned to use the report in the mid-term campaign, but now it was largely useless.
Marquis Childs discusses again the development of the hydrogen bomb, this time in terms of the stress being placed on the atom bomb as a type of Maginot Line, a magic line of defense, while neglecting conventional defenses.
He cites a 1946 statement by John J. McCloy, former Assistant Secretary of War and currently High Commissioner of the U.S. zone of West Germany, that scientists had informed him that with a similar effort put into development of the hydrogen bomb as that to develop the atomic bomb, within two years of the close of the war, a hydrogen bomb could be built with a thousand times more power than the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and that within ten years, atom bombs could be produced which were ten times more powerful than the bomb dropped August 6, 1945.
The cost of the Manhattan Project had been two billion dollars and a similar project for the hydrogen bomb would probably cost between 1.5 and two billion dollars over a two-year period. The money would likely come out of defense and foreign spending. Senator Kenneth Wherry, for instance, had asserted that it should definitely be developed at the expense of foreign aid.
But public and military opinion might have been underestimating the industrial and military potential of the Soviets. General Augustin Guillaume, French Military attache in Moscow between 1946 and 1948, had written a significant book titled Soviet Arms and Soviet Power, in which he posited that Hitler's defeat in the East came because he and his advisers had not realized the great strides Russia had made militarily or the power of the entire Soviet state to resist attack.
Mr. Childs suggests that the country should not be blinded by "the magic of atomic power" to the extent that the essentials of security were ignored, that it might be time for a complete overhaul of American concepts of war and peace rather than to descend "further into the awe-inspiring atom wonderland."
Robert C. Ruark suggests that intellectual arrogance had gripped a part of the country, in the scientific, governmental and diplomatic arenas, such that the average person was not to be allowed to know what motivated the decision-makers to reach their decisions. "Junior must never be afflicted with knowledge, lest he trip and bruise himself on same."
One such example, he suggests, was that of David Lilienthal having nominated himself to discuss the hydrogen bomb with Josef Stalin and seek to negotiate a deal for control. He finds it arrogant of Mr. Lilienthal to think that he could deal with professional double-crossers and thugs in Moscow. He thinks that the President ought let no one visit Russia who knew enough to try to negotiate on nuclear energy.
He finds the earlier effort of former Vice-President Henry Wallace in the same vein to have been equally futile and starry-eyed.
The arrogant thinkers condescended to the public and then did things without telling the taxpayer, who then had to foot the bill. And the arrogance was often wrong. Often, such mistakes ended in bloodshed.
He
believes that often the decision-makers were no wiser than the
average person and if so, he wanted to be in on the act before they
got the country into more trouble. He wants truth
Framed Edition
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