Tuesday, December 11, 1945

The Charlotte News

Tuesday, December 11, 1945

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the United Steel Workers of the CIO had called for a strike to begin January 14. The strike vote included aluminum workers and iron ore miners. In calling the strike, the steel workers condemned as undemocratic President Truman's proposed legislation to provide for fact-finding committees and a thirty-day cooling off period before a strike would go into effect.

The demand of the workers was for a $2 per day wage increase. The larger steel companies contended that they could not pay the raise without a corresponding increase in prices, but 60 smaller steel companies had asked OPA to maintain its price controls. If the strike were to go into effect, its extent, impacting more than a half-million workers, would be unprecedented.

The International UAW asked its members to contribute $1 each to the special international strike fund in support of the UAW strike at G.M., which was anticipated to be of long duration, having already lasted three weeks.

The House Military Committee, meanwhile, refused to approve adding the President's proposed legislation as an amendment to the pending War Labor Disputes Act. The action meant that the bill would continue in its normal course as a single bill rather than as an amendment.

In China, Russia agreed to permit Chinese Government troops to fly into Manchuria at Changchun, Mukden, and Harbin, to stem the advance of Red Chinese forces seeking to occupy the region.

General Marshall continued his testimony before the joint Congressional committee investigating Pearl Harbor indicating that, without his knowledge, a subordinate, Lt. General Joseph McNarney, had instructed witnesses to withhold testimony from the Army Board of Inquiry regarding the cracking of the Japanese code known as "Magic".

The Board met in summer 1944 and issued its report in late August, 1945. General Marshall later learned that, pursuant to assurances from Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal to Admiral Husband Kimmel, the Navy was releasing the Magic messages to the Navy Board of Inquiry, holding hearings at the same time. The General then testified in secret, not made part of the record, to the Army Board regarding Magic. He also testified that the rumor that he had ordered destruction of the Japanese "winds" message ordering destruction of diplomatic codes, signaling war, was untrue, and that at the time, he had not even heard of the "winds" message.

The judge advocate in the court martial of Captain Charles McVay of the ill-fated Indianapolis, sunk on July 30 on the way to Leyte with the loss of 880 men after delivering key components to Tinian for the first atomic bomb, had not yet determined whether he intended to call as a witness the commander of the Japanese submarine, I-58, which had sunk the ship. The commander, Ike Hashimoto, had been flown to Washington in case he was needed to testify. The judge advocate had questioned Mr. Hashimoto through an interpreter and needed to make an assessment of his credibility.

Though not covered on the front page, the Nuremberg Tribunal this date saw a film on the history of the Nazi Party before it came to power and afterward. Also on this date, American assistant prosecutor Thomas Dodd described how Albert Speer and Fritz Sauckel directed the forced labor program of Nazi Germany.

In London, it was reported that a record-breaking crime wave was sweeping England, prompting Scotland Yard to ask for volunteers and part-time policemen. In central London, 12,179 crimes were reported in October, a record. The increase was laid to the 10,000 deserters afoot in the country, including 500 Americans.

In Chelsea, Mass., police believed that the motive had surfaced for a kidnapping of a baby from its carriage across the street from the family home thirteen days earlier, and they predicted a break in the case soon.

In Manchester, Tenn, murder charges were dismissed against three tourist camp operators after tests of ashes in a rubbish heap proved negative for any bone matter or other human remains. The charges had stemmed from contentions of two black workers at the camp who claimed that the three arrested defendants had burned five babies. Apparently, the prosecuting authorities decided first to arrest, then to test.

In New Rochelle, N.Y., Tommy Manville, ready to marry for the eighth time, showed up at the local clerk's office in a fireman's uniform to obtain the marriage license. He and his prospective bride then went in search of a justice of the peace.

Hal Boyle, reporting from Chinhsien in Manchuria, indicates that Manchuria proved how a country could win a war and still be far from winning the peace. It was slowly being re-annexed to China following 14 years of puppet existence under Japan. Japan had put more railroads in place than that in most of the rest of China, in anticipation of the invasion of Siberia, leading to the establishment of many industrial cities in the region.

Freck Sproles reports of four young brothers who had been promised no real Christmas, and, thanks to generous contributions to the Empty Stocking Fund, would now have one, with all their requests met. One had desired a bank with real money; another wanted a book in which he could place his own name and retain it; the third wished for a football; the three year-old could not make up his mind but would receive a nice gift, better than coal, though likely not diamonds.

The Fund was now up to $2,688.79, an increase of a little less than $300 since the day before.

Charlotte was set to receive more cold weather, moving in a mass of cold air from across the Dakotas and Minnesota, affecting most of the country, the local low predicted to be between 20 and 24 with some snow.

It was zero in Iowa, 24 below in Jamestown, N.D., 10 below in Duluth, 15 in Knoxville, 21 in Atlanta, 32 in Dallas, and had sleeted in New Orleans during the morning hours.

In Richmond, a man in search of mistletoe fell thirty feet down Massanutten Mountain but lived to tell the tale.

In an unrelated item, Suffolk residents were warned to be on the lookout for a man dressed as Santa Claus who entered houses, possibly via the chimney, discussed matters with the children and left with gifts of his own choosing.

On the editorial page, "Controversial Conversation" finds the civil liberties of Secretary of State Thad Eure more in danger of being trampled than those of the students from the University who had proposed and passed admission of blacks to the next Student Legislative Assembly. University president Frank Porter Graham had issued a lengthy statement assuring the University's full support of the students and their right freely to express themselves.

The editorial regards the statement as overkill, that such expressions from University students, sounding "as though they were lifted from a late edition of The Daily Worker", had become so commonplace that no one regarded it as a story. What had made it a story was Mr. Eure's objection to their stand. Thus, it contends, the complaint of the students that the newspapers had ignored their early work in the Assembly on other issues, was not well taken.

Later, it opines, the students would have an opportunity to take action with regard to their proposed policies of world government, appropriation of 100 million dollars for roads, twelve-month salaries for teachers, physical consolidation of the Greater University, revision of the G.I. Bill of Rights, the abolition of segregated public transportation, and removal of Francisco Franco as Fascist dictator of Spain. For now, they could only talk. And while as newsworthy as the story of inviting blacks to their membership, these other proposals were only just that. The latter had action to it.

Well, we feel certain that a young Jesse Helms down in Monroe was following with baited eyes this story, appearing to fit almost squarely within his own politics.

This editorial is so far out in right field, however, as to deserve no further comment. It could have been written for the most part by George Wallace two decades hence.

The Daily Worker? If these tame proposals placed the students in the category of Communists, then more power to Communism.

Is it any wonder that when it came time in the early 1980's to debate Martin Luther King Day, Jesse Helms alleged Communist associations of the deceased civil rights leader as an objection to setting aside a day of remembrance of him.

It is doubtful that the Senator would have exhibited the same passion had it been suggested that Lee-Jackson Day be revived or made into a national holiday, or as a compromise, that Jeff Davis Day be celebrated.

In any event, lay off the University.

"Could This Be Uncle Sap?" finds the isolationist press reviving the old anti-British sentiments prevalent prior to the war in the wake of the proposed loan to Britain. The Chicago Tribune had run a cartoon with "Uncle Sap" surrounded by international pickpockets.

But, in fact, Prime Minister Attlee was having a tough time convincing the British public and Parliament that the loan was good for Britain. Interest was to be charged on the 4.4 billion dollar loan at two percent. The London Economist viewed the interest, requiring payments of 140 million dollars annually for the rest of the century, as exploitative given that Britain had engaged in the war before America and helped to keep the war with Germany confined geographically.

The British position was understandable and underscored the notion that the money was a loan, not a gift. It would prevent a trade war and obtain for the country a large cash return over time. If it made the country a sucker, then, it suggests, the country ought be so suckered more often.

"A Good Five-Cent Cigar" comments on the resurgence of cigar-smoking during the war years to replace the more effeminate cigarette. It suggests that many had become addicted to cigars and the Cigar Insititute reported problems of keeping supply equivalent to demand.

The war had brought increased cost of production, both as to tobacco and labor, and it appeared that producers were concentrating on higher-priced quarter cigars at the expense of the twofer variety.

The Cigar Institute urged that there was nothing wrong with the cigar industry that a popular-priced cigar wouldn't fix, remindful of Vice-President Thomas Marshall's statement following World War I, that what the country needed was a good five-cent cigar.

A piece from the Washington Post, titled "A Medal for Masuda", comments favorably on the prospect of General Joseph Stilwell's presentation of the Distinguished Service Cross to Mary Masuda of Santa Ana, California, as recipient for her brother, S/Sgt. Kazuo Masuda, who was killed during the Italian campaign. One of his brothers had been wounded in France as the 442nd combat team rescued a lost battalion in the Vosges Mountains. Another brother had been assigned to the Pacific and a fourth had a medical discharge from the Army.

Mary Masuda had been relocated to a camp on the Pacific Coast during the war, part of the relocation of Japanese-Americans. She had returned home the previous May to be greeted by five men who came to her home at night and tried to make her leave. The sheriff said he could do nothing to protect her though she provided him the name of the men.

The piece found the award therefore particularly fitting and hoped that Ms. Masuda would receive it with forgiveness and not bitterness toward her fellow countrymen. The symbolic act ought, it offers, have significance and meaning to everyone.

Drew Pearson discusses the testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by Ambassador Patrick Hurley, asserting that certain diplomats, most notably George Atcheson and John Service, had sought deliberately to undermine his efforts to unify China with messages seeking to support the Communist forces over the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-Shek.

General Hurley had been a good bet for a good show for decades, since he had represented the Choctaw Indian Nation of Oklahoma in hearings before Congress in 1912. Once he was accused of taking, within the space of two years, both sides of an issue, whether to open the rolls of the Choctaw Nation for inspection.

While Ambassador, he had argued with General Al Wedemeyer over sending a delegation to meet with the Chinese Communists to evaluate their military strength. He had threatened to shoot General Wedemeyer's chief of staff for chiding him over sending to General Marshall a letter complaining of General Wedemeyer. Guests then had to separate the two men, with the Chinese looking on in unimpressed amazement.

Later, in May, 1944, when Ambassador Hurley sent a memo to the State Department, suggesting that a kind of proctectorate be established over Iran, Iraq, and other Middle Eastern countries, Eugene Rostow labeled it "hysterical, messianic globaloney"—borrowing the neologism coined by Clare Boothe Luce in 1943—and Mr. Rostow and General Hurley nearly got into a fist-fight, as General Hurley challenged Mr. Rostow to put up his dukes. Assistant Secretary Dean Acheson had been present and separated the two men, demanded that General Hurley apologize, which he did, but not without reserving a good deal of rancor for career diplomats and for Mr. Acheson, currently his chief target in the State Department for supposedly undermining Middle East policy aimed at curtailing British monopolies, a policy General Hurley claimed as his own and which had been supported by FDR and former Secretary of State Stettinius.

Mr. Pearson alters his previous rendition of President Roosevelt's response to this episode, which involved also Adolf Berle, quoted at the time as "Too much hurly-burly," now toned down to a simple "Pat is Pat."

General Hurley had threatened to stump the country in 1944 regarding FDR's alleged cozy relationship with "Russian Communism" and "British Imperialism".

His latest sideshow before Congress, following his unceremonious resignation as Ambassador, appeared as prelude to a run for the Senate from New Mexico in 1946. Many insiders were saying that he also had an eye on the White House for 1948, but Republicans asserted that he would not have a chance for the nomination.

"Little airport", incidentally, from May 20, 1944, is now here, and "Savages" is now here.

Marquis Childs comments on the Senate approval finally for the 550 million dollars worth of additional relief which had already been authorized for the UNRRA fund to feed Europe through the winter. The approval still had to go to joint conference to work out differences in the House and Senate versions.

Part of the blame for the long delay had been Senator Tom Connally's iron grip on the Foreign Relations Committee, stultifying passage of the appropriation. Meanwhile, the House had already authorized an additional 1.35 billion dollar commitment for UNRRA for late winter and early spring, a bipartisan effort led by Representative Christian Herter of Massachusetts. Mr. Herter withdrew his previous condition that the funds be conditioned on the beneficiary countries allowing American journalists to enter. The Senate needed to follow the example.

There was also need for volunteer giving by Americans to starving Europeans.

Dorothy Thompson discusses the loan of 4.4 billion dollars to Great Britain, still pending approval by Congress, which required interest and yearly payments, terms which the British had sought to avoid. The amount roughly equated to the 3.5 billion dollars spent by Britain in the United States for arms and munitions prior to the passage of Lend-Lease in March, 1941. The difference was based on an adjustment of Lend-Lease materials shipped to Britain during the war. The pre-Pearl Harbor British orders had strengthened the war industry in the United States, easing the burden of mobilization after Pearl Harbor.

Arguments were being put forward that lending money to Britain bolstered its socialism, but Ms. Thompson responds that it would be difficult to find any country in Europe not subject to the same argument. Europe had to be rebuilt for Britain to thrive again economically. It was a mistake for Americans to believe that Europe could be blackmailed politically with loans and aid. Hitler, for instance, had operated a barter system to induce trade relationships. The Soviets could easily do the same thing in Eastern Europe. Thus trying to pull rightward the British or other governments would likely only cause them to fall into the orbit of Fascism or Communism.

A letter writer from Clover, S.C., concerned over the Charlotte housing shortage, suggests that the churches of Charlotte offer up their many empty buildings for use as temporary housing.

Another letter writer, from Norfolk, complains of demands by Northern labor for higher wages, in turn causing industry to raise prices, impacting the cost of living in the South.

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