Thursday, October 11, 1945

The Charlotte News

Thursday, October 11, 1945

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the House displayed bipartisan support for the tax cut bill set to reduce revenues by 5.35 billion dollars. The bill guaranteed every taxpayer a minimum of a ten percent reduction, with 2.627 billion of the reduction going to individual taxpayers, while 12 million low income citizens would be eliminated from paying taxes. The proposed bill would lower corporate taxes by reducing the excess profits tax from 85.5 percent to 60 percent and the combined normal and surtax from 40 to 36 percent, plus repealing, at the beginning of fiscal year 1946, the declared value capital stocks tax. Excise taxes on luxury items were also to be cut and the $5 automobile use tax eliminated. Both Democrats and Republicans vowed to balance the budget while paying down the national debt run up by the war.

Fifteen labor and farm organizations sent messages to the Congressmen stating that the bill provided large windfalls to the corporations while allowing only meager relief to low and middle income persons. The groups sought higher exemption levels and repeal of the three percent normal tax on individuals, the latter having been urged by the Administration.

In Frankfurt, the United States determined not to send any more German prisoners to France, based on a Red Cross finding that German prisoners in France were suffering from malnutrition and not receiving treatment in accord with the Geneva convention. Some 700,000 such prisoners had been transferred to the French to aid in rebuilding France after an agreement in the spring to turn over 1.36 million such prisoners.

The House Naval Committee reported that there were indications that an effective defense to the atomic bomb had been developed. The report provided no details, but said that radio signals could enable detonation at substantial distances without knowing the location of the bombs, the same claim made by Larry Crosby of the Crosby Research Foundation the previous week, stating that his scientists had developed such a method. Scientists on the Manhattan Project, however, did not believe the assertion.

Secretary of Commerce Henry Wallace told the Military Affairs Committee that because of this defensive technology, the United States, if it developed a huge stockpile of nuclear weapons, might wind up in consequence the most vulnerable of the nations.

"In this field," said the Secretary and former Vice-President, "it is one world or no world."

It was announced that troops would be returning from the Pacific at the rate of 20,000 per month through March, leaving about 400,000 men in the occupation forces, about 200,000 of whom would be in Japan and Korea.

With the Army under the command of General Eduardo Avalos, in control of Argentina, strong man and ousted Vice-President Juan Peron spoke to an adoring crowd, appearing as precursor to his run for the presidency in the promised April elections.

The national income of the United States had shrunk by 800 million dollars between July and August, as war jobs ended.

The nation's idle workers remained at about 450,000, a small decrease from the previous day despite the return of 42,000 dye and print workers in textile mills in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. More coal miners struck, involving now a total of 650 mines and 200,000 miners, swelling the numbers of idle by nearly as many as had returned to work.

In Burbank, 400 Lockheed workers joined the 400 striking movie workers at Warner Brothers, but no disturbances or arrests were reported.

General Jonathan Wainwright continues with the fourth in a series of articles on his captivity from May, 1942 after the fall of Corregidor to the Japanese, and the time leading to it. In this installment, he describes the attack on Luzon on December 8, 1941, some six hours after Pearl Harbor. General Wainwright was in command at the time of Northern Luzon, having just assumed the duty at the end of November. He was informed by General MacArthur's headquarters at shortly before 9:00 a.m. that Baguio, 95 miles north of his location at Stotsenburg, had been hit by Japanese bombers. He began deploying what forces he could to protect Clark Field, per MacArthur's orders, but it was too late.

By 12:30, bombers were overhead at Stotsenberg and General Wainwright and others were running for their lives. The Japanese swept over Clark Field, hitting it and the American bombers, notoriously on the ground and bunched together as sitting ducks.

When asked by his Filipino assistant what he should do, General Wainwright told him to get a bottle of beer, which he did, and the General then drank it down and handed back the bottle. It appeared to help.

As the General stood beside an anti-aircraft gun, a young soldier was hit in the lower forehead by flying shrapnel from Clark Field, 1,200 yards distant. He fell, though still conscious, wiped a dirty hand across his bloody face, insisting that no one seek medical attention for him but rather stay by the gun.

"We were in a war for which we were no more prepared than a child is prepared to fight a cruel and seasoned professional pugilist."

In Detroit, a hapless soldier, upset by his 19-year old lady friend having returned his car later than anticipated after borrowing it to go shopping, stood accused of felonious assault by having seized her upon her return at 5:30 a.m., thrown her into a chair and cut off her hair in chunks.

She carried her strawberry blonde hair to court in a paper bag.

Whether she gave the bag a shake to entice the prosecutor and judge to issue the warrant, was not stated. Nor was set forth a description of what else, if anything, she might have worn to court besides her short hair.

The young woman had contended that a flat tire had delayed her return. Apparently, either the stores stayed open very late in Detroit or she had the flat in an extremely remote location without a spare worth a dime.

Or, collaborating with the enemy, perhaps?

Probably lucky.

Don't blame her. She was just a teen salt.

On the editorial page, "Sound Advice" suggests that when an old soldier, as General Marshall had in his biennial report, ends a war by bidding tribute to a mainly citizen Army, it said much for the nation. He had made news by expressing more concern of the future than pride in the past, but had also expressed great satisfaction in having converted civilians into a supreme fighting force.

He favored emphasis on scientific research in preparation for a future of push-button wars rather than so much traditional reliance on fighting men on the ground, while also training youth in the basic skills of soldiering.

He felt that the country had historically been too idealistic and needed to realize that developing a policy for security was not a war policy, that to preserve the peace, the country must stand prepared to fight.

"The Question" examines the determination to preserve the credit of $2,000 against an FHA loan at low interest to veterans until the housing market boom and inflated prices subsided, versus the alternative, as recommended by the American Legion, to remove restrictions on the use of the $2,000 credit based on property appraisals reviewed by the Veterans Administration to determine whether the property sought for purchase was priced on an inflated basis, as most were.

The consequence of the latter policy had been to leave most veterans without the ability to purchase homes even with the $2,000 credit as a down payment. But the hitch in the American Legion recommendation was that the FHA and private banks also assessed home value on the same basis as the VA and so refused loans for the most part based on 80 percent of the purchase price, meaning that veterans would have to put up typically some of their own cash, in addition to the $2,000 credit, to afford a home.

The result was a Hobson's Choice.

"Dangerous Justice" comments on the conviction for treason and death sentence provided Pierre Laval during the week, scheduled to die before a firing squad, to be carried out on October 15. It suggests that the manner of execution flew in the face of American tradition under which firing squads were reserved for fairly honorable criminals—certainly a concept which would undergo complete conceptual change during the ensuing twenty years and the alteration of societal attitude toward the death penalty in general.

The piece suggested that the disorderly and emotional atmosphere which had pervaded the trial would likely play a role before the Nuremberg Tribunal. Laval had refused to participate in his trial and, indeed, it was difficult to imagine any defense to war crimes, once one had cooperated with the enemy or donned the enemy uniform, as would be the case in the Nuremberg trials.

While serving the twin purposes of deterrence and retribution, the danger of the Nuremberg trials was that they could reduce justice to a satire of itself much as the trial of Pierre Laval had done to the French system.

Of course, the French trial was a farce, as we have suggested, because of a poor judge who did not properly administer the proceeding in an even-handed manner from the start, refusing to allow M. Laval to make his own opening statement, asking him leading questions during the trial, and so on.

Nuremberg would not be beset by the same difficulties, as there would be no little cracker clowns on the bench or sitting at the prosecutor's table. The defense and the defendant do not have to show respect to crackers under any system of jurisprudence.

"Consistency" finds strange the arguments being employed by industry against the minimum wage and against union efforts to break through the wage ceiling imposed by the war. The Cotton Textile Institute claimed that the textile industry could not withstand the 65-cent minimum wage being proposed by Congress, (not the President as the column suggests, the President having left the matter of setting the minimum to the Congress in his proposals), that it would be inflationary. The present average wage in the South, at 64.4 cents an hour, was already inflationary, argued the Institute. It advocated that the Government also relax price controls to permit the industry to prosper.

The piece found this line of reasoning paradoxical, governed solely by self-interest, to absent a floor on wages while removing controls on prices and providing a floor on prices and thus profits. "That, we suppose, makes it come out even."

The excerpt from the Congressional Record has Senator George Aiken of Vermont discussing the full employment bill, saying that there was no reason to exclude from it the word "investment", however generally it was included.

Senator George Radcliffe of Maryland stated that "expenditure" was sufficiently broad but that he did not object to "investment" as long as it was suitably restricted. It should not be included, he believed, without qualification.

Senator Charles Tobey of New Hampshire, a Republican, then asked permission to speak, to engage in two bits of repartee.

Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan, also a Republican, questioned why repartee, to which Senator Tobey responded, "Repartee is good; and I hope the repartee itself is equally good."

He then proceeded to inquire, in relation to Senator Vandenberg's suggestion that, if high unemployment came to pass in the wake of the war, the country would look after ten million unemployed and also be responsible for the remaining 120 million people, as to whether the Senator had ever listened to the gospel hymn, "The Ninety and Nine".

Senator Vandenberg responded that he had and believed that Senator Tobey was correct in wanting to look after the one, but also thought the other 99 had a stake, as the hymn advised.

Senator Tobey clarified that the hymn suggested that the other 99 took care of themselves while the one was alone on the range, brought back into the fold by the Lord, that it was the intent of the unemployment bill to do that.

A quick fact check shows that Senator Tobey, as well as the Obama-Biden Administration, is quite correct in this regard.

Again, Governor Romney, if you can assure that the Ramblers won't lose their front wheels after about eight years and 65,000 miles, and will promise one to everyone without a decent automobile, we shall consider voting for you, especially if it comes equipped as a hybrid. Otherwise, you need a program besides: "Trust me. I am your friend and this guy over here hasn't done nearly enough to get you out of the mess my party got you into. Trust me. Look at gas prices, for instance, compared to just before the election in 2008. No, don't be churlish and look at the prices in the summer of 2008; look at them in late October. I may not tell you how precisely I will fix it all, but I will, and get your gas prices back to the October, 2008 level, at least in October. Look at the Massachusetts Miracle. Trust me. I am consistent."

In any event, we are glad that your father, as we were reminded by that ad we referenced on Monday, was able to provide to our family a one dollar savings between 1961 and 1962 on the Rambler we bought in August, 1962. With that dollar of savings, our mama, during Bargain Days in 1964, was able to afford to provide us the means to go uptown and purchase "Another Side of..." from the cut-out bin. And we still have it.

At the same time, we were able also to afford, at .50, if we recall correctly, a copy of excerpts from the recorded speeches of John F. Kennedy. We still have that, also.

Now, you see, that is true parsimony at work in liberal-soul fashion, a family program replete with family values. That is what we need in the country, just as Senator Tobey recommended in 1945. There is no such thing as "compassionate conservatism", an oxymoronic phrase if there ever was one, a euphemism for, "Let me get rich off your sweat and hard work, unworthy peasant, and then we'll see what your base needs are, peon, and try to provide a little for you in accordance with your worth as a human being, which isn't much, as evidenced by your degraded lot."

In acronymic shortage, EComCon, the E standing for Exxon.

Drew Pearson comments that the Secret Service had a harder time keeping pace with President Truman than any other President in many years, that he liked mingling with friends and entered crowds without fear. The Secret Service had been accustomed for twelve years to moving slowly to accompany FDR because of his physical limitations.

In Independence, the local people who had come to know personally the Trumans resented the Secret Service and its strictures on access to the President.

Bess Truman was camera shy and had refused access to the press to the Truman home in Independence, dubbed the summer White House. It was an attitude in direct contrast with Eleanor Roosevelt.

One of the reasons also for the restricted access, he posits, was that the home belonged to the mother of Mrs. Truman, who did not believe it should become a showplace for the press. The President's mother-in-law, Mrs. D. W. Wallace, had originally not approved of Harry Truman when he courted Bess, believed he would not amount to much, given his haphazard business career. Only after he had returned from World War I as a captain was he given permission by her parents to marry Bess. He was at the time 35 and she, 33.

Mr. Pearson next imparts of the lack of invitation to some newsmen extended by the Mayor of Independence to the poker game at which the President sat, while providing invitations to Merriman Smith of the United Press and Ernest Vaccaro of the Associated Press. After first being informed by the A.P. and U.P. men that they had been out the night before with some girls, the other journalists who regularly traveled with the President found out the truth of the tryst and were incensed. Apparently, on that occasion, the previous month, the President had eschewed horseshoes, as he had recently engaged at Jefferson Island.

After imparting a few miscellaneous items, including the intention of Commander Gene Tunney, the former heavyweight champion, to run for the Senate in Connecticut, a seat held by Senator Thomas Hart, appointed after the death of Francis Maloney, he tells of the disappearance of the greatest living expert on atomic energy, Werner Heisenberg. It was rumored that he might be hiding in Spain or Argentina, both countries with resources necessary to build an atomic bomb—no doubt a comforting thought in 1945 causing many to begin to accept the advice of Claire Boothe Luce and start digging underground shelters.

He also imparts that the Army was about to cease the practice of microfilming V-mail for armed forces personnel overseas, but that the V-mail forms could still be used to send mail overseas, without it first being microfilmed, a process undertaken to cut down on the weight and volume of mail in supply ships during the war.

Marquis Childs suggests that the Robert Burns advice to individuals to see themselves as others saw them ought be followed by nations, without distorting subjectivism and egoism, to avoid the sort of disputes which would lead to further war.

Recently, he had lunched with a friend, a newspaper editor from a democratic neutral country during the war, and had explained to him a very unflattering portrait at present of America. His friend was concerned at the tendency to retreat into isolationism, the desire quickly to disarm and bring the troops home. When he had inquired of Congressmen as to the reason for this plan, the response had been popular will. It did not agree with the concept of democracy held by Mr. Childs's friend, that legislators had an obligation of leadership and education of the electorate.

The friend was also distressed on the domestic side, regarding special interest groups which seemed bent on dividing the country, especially in the area of labor-management relations. He had inquired as to the opinion of a Senator on the 30 percent wage increase demand of labor and received the abrupt reply that it was the beginning of the "Red revolution". He had insisted that he did not understand, at which point the Senator angrily reiterated the assertion.

He had also found disconcerting the attitude displayed toward the late President Roosevelt and his family, some quarters attempting to tear down his legacy. Despite coming from one of the most conservative newspapers in Europe, it had always supported the New Deal concept.

Mr. Childs concludes that his friend would take away an unflattering view of the country, frittering away its prestige and power achieved during the war and devolving to the old suspicious attitudes associated with isolationism. It would likely lead to the country having less authority on the world stage should it continue.

"For it will become apparent that while we have the power to destroy, we do not have the power to create."

Samuel Grafton suggests that if a German stepped forward to demand that Germany be permitted around three billion marks of exports per year, the Allies would laugh derisively. Yet, according to the New York Times, the United States had proposed such a plan through officers attached to the military occupation force in Germany. Mr. Grafton suggests that, as the plan was cut through with contradictions, it caused questions as to whether less "know-how" was requisite of such officers and more "know-what".

The explanation for the proposal was to enable Germany to pay for the occupation at the rate of about $5 per soldier per day. The de-industrialization of Germany would cause domestic product only to suffer about 161 million marks per year and the export market, about 40 million per year, less than 50 cents per German. But there was need for an additional 2.737 million marks per year to pay for the occupation. To produce that amount, some limited industry was needed.

He posits, however, that such a plan would have the Allies chasing their tails, the like of a safety campaign financed by selling firecrackers. It was more effective in the long run to finance the occupation and leave the Germans without the industrial base with which potentially again to build a war machine. That such industry would be exclusively devoted to peaceful production should not be taken seriously by any American who realized how quickly America's own ordinary industry had been harnessed to manufacture war goods.

There was no reason for insisting that Germany come out even after the war. The country seemed to be of the feeling that a strong Germany would act as a bulwark against Russia. Meanwhile, there was no plan to enable Britain or France to come out of the war financially even.

"Why can't we let the Germans, those captains of disorder, clean up their own mess, an educational device known to every parent and every teacher?"

A letter writer explains how unfair it was that her husband, a member of the armed forces, remained in the occupation forces, regardless of having served two years overseas, that men who had remained out of overseas duty should be assigned to populate the occupation forces.

Another letter writer plumps for release of controls on sales of real estate and rent controls.

A third letter writer was interested by Ms. Flow's letter of the previous Friday which had drawn analogy between the WCTU and the Westinghouse air brake. She had failed to mention, he says, that the brakes could be had locally at Power Brake Co. of 1506 W. Morehead St. He added that he enjoyed reading the newspaper.

As we said, like clockwork.

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