The Charlotte News
Monday, December 17, 1945
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that at the AC Delco Spark Plug Division of G.M. in Flint, Michigan, a flying wedge of police officers cracked the picket line of UAW on the excuse of escorting office workers past the pickets. In all, 150 office workers were led through the line. The strike had forced 38,000 office workers not on strike to stay away from the plants. G.M. had ordered them to return this date, the 26th day of the strike. In other cities, the office workers entered the plants without incident. In some locations the pickets, since the inception of the strike, had permitted the office workers to pass, but in Flint, shouts of "scab" greeted the office personnel crossing the picket lines.
Meanwhile, in Lansing, according to NAW International representative George Nader, at the Elm Street gate, an Oldsmobile official struck a striker. He promised that a warrant would be sworn against the unnamed Oldsmobile official.
In Moscow, the foreign ministers of the Big Three had met for the first time Sunday evening in the current conference and would meet for the second time in the afternoon this date. A brief announcement described the atmosphere as friendly and cooperative. Only one American press representative, a photographer, had been permitted to observe the representatives as they ate dinner. He described them as being in excellent humor, possibly therefore partaking of ice cream.
Tabriz, Azerbaijan, in Iran, was reported to be entirely in the hands of the Insurgents, seeking independence for the province. The Russians had prevented Iranian interference in the takeover of the provincial capital, taking away the sidearms of the troops and confining them to their barracks.
Prince Konoye, twice former Premier of Japan, in 1937-39 and in 1940-41, committed suicide in Tokyo in the pre-dawn hours of Sunday. It was believed that his death might prompt Hirohito to abdicate as Emperor, leaving the throne to a twelve-year old to govern under a regency. In the Diet, a veteran member, Kukio Ozaki, introduced a resolution to change the name of the Emperor's reign from "Showa", an unprecedented action if accomplished.
We do not know because it does not say, but it is entirely possible that Mr. Ozaki's substitute name for the play would be "No-Showa".
General Patton was reported to be sitting upright in bed for the first time at the hospital in which he was recuperating in Heidelberg, following the traffic accident near Mannheim one week earlier, on December 9. Doctors stated that he was quickly recovering, losing some of his paralysis, having stated, "This is a hell of a way to die." His traction apparatus to align his fractured vertebrae had been removed and replaced by a plaster cast.
The General received messages of encouragement from Winston Churchill, General Omar Bradley, General Hap Arnold, and General Carl Spaatz among others.
Unfortunately, despite the optimistic prognosis at the beginning of the week, General Patton would take a turn for the worse and pass away on Friday, December 21.
Little did he reckon with the notion, no doubt, that the world would end exactly 67 years to the day hence. Not long to go now, Armageddonites. So, why the hell are some of you bothering to buy guns? That isn't going to help if God is that mad.
You're doomed. You might as well face it. You will die. We hate to be the ones to have to impart it to you.
In Washington, the joint Congressional committee investigating Pearl Harbor heard testimony from Vice-Admiral Thomas Wilkinson, head of O.N.I. at the time of the attack. He stated that subsequent to his stint as director of the office, after July, 1942, he was instructed by Admiral Nimitz in the Pacific to go after Admiral Yamamoto, which he then accomplished by shooting his plane down. Before he undertook the task, he informed Admiral Nimitz that it would compromise the code-breaking at O.N.I. and G-2 because the Japanese would become aware of the detailed knowledge possessed by the Americans on the movements of the high level Japanese officers. Admiral Nimitz nevertheless had told him to proceed.
In Manila, General Yamashita's execution pursuant to conviction for war crimes by an American military tribunal was stayed by the U.S. Supreme Court pending a ruling on his petitions for certiorari.
In Paris, the prefect of police announced that the city's 178 licensed brothels would be closed in three months and subject to strict regulation thereafter. The action came as a result of a crusade by a French woman, Mme. Marthe Richard, who claimed she had been offered $20,000 American to drop the effort.
In Red Wing
In Lumpkin, Ga., a black suspect was held in the murder on Friday of the local postmaster who had been soaked with kerosene and burned to death inside his combination store and post office. The suspect apparently had been identified by another black man who was passing by the store as he heard the postmaster's cries for help and saw the suspect depart with a bushel basket over his head. Bloodhounds, however, were still hunting the area for the attacker while two material witnesses were also held.
At Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, another "blue baby" with a malformed heart had received corrective surgery, the 67th of the year since the operation had first been performed the previous December.
The cold snap which stretched from California to Florida had claimed 13 lives as sub-zero temperatures continued to be recorded across the country.
In Illinois, six people were reported fatally injured in a car-train collision because of a clouded windshield on the car, possibly explaining the "mystery" surrounding the death in October of painter and illustrator N. C. Wyeth and his grandson in Chadds Ford, Pa., when the car in which they were riding was hit by a train near the family home.
In Pinole, California, four children were killed when a chicken coop
Buffalo, N.Y., was hit by 48 inches of snow in one of the worst blizzards in its history, stopping all transit lines.
In Hiro, Japan, according to Stars and Stripes, band leader Sharon Rogers was upset regarding the fraternization with Japanese women by American servicemen. It made her blood boil and was "disgusting", the "rottenest thing" she had ever seen in her life.
Freck Sproles reminds that just a week remained until Christmas Eve. The Empty Stocking Fund had increased by another $200, to $4,098.79.
On the editorial page, "A Century of Progress" comments on the centennial of the founding of the Graniteville Manufacturing Company, a textile mill, in South Carolina. The piece finds that it had taken courage a century earlier to found the mill.
The owners still clung to a low-wage policy and thus came under attack from Southern liberals. It was too easy to forget that the factories had once served as a means of economic salvation for the people after the Civil War.
Graniteville had lost its central importance to the economic welfare of the South which it once had. But it still retained its spot in history, a cornerstone of the textile industry in the South.
"Measuring the Spiral" reports of the Department of Labor's compiled statistics on cost of living in 102 cities, leading it to the conclusion that a family of three would be plunged into debt in the ensuing year, with the spiral of inflation already occurring, should weekly salary not exceed $42.
"Rejected Christmas Gift" comments on the Senate's rejection, by a vote of 47 to 24, of a raise in expense allowance by $2,500, despite the House already having voted itself a similar raise.
The piece opines that, to attract better people in government, it was necessary generally to have salary increases. While the Senate had been magnanimous in refusing the expense allowance through the back door, constituents would likely not begrudge an increase in salary.
A piece from the Louisville Courier-Journal, "The Sanitary Santa Claus", comments on the many strictures in place in various towns and cities across the nation, surely occupying a good deal of the time of Santa Claus to learn to appreciate the many ordinances. Measures, for instance, which required clean beards would prevent him, no doubt, from using chimneys as a means of entrance.
The piece, as a remedy, suggests a slight change to "The Night Before Christmas": "He was dressed all in
But what about his jack boots
Was he also properly duct taped, to meet Homeland Security suggestions extant in 2003?
Drew Pearson, along with the other columnists, now rearranged into a single column, comments on the first anniversary the previous day of the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge, which, by the third week of January when it ended, had resulted in 60,000 American casualties. The Nazi last gasp did not cease until 20,000 fresh American troops were flown across the Atlantic to be dropped into the battle zone.
As he had advocated previously, Mr. Pearson plumps for an investigation of the bungling which led to the heavy loss of American life in this critical battle of the war. It was as important, he asserts, as the investigation into Pearl Harbor, with 2,390 killed.
The Army had followed a long policy of covering up its mistakes, including those in World War I and the Civil War. The policy protected the generals who erred while those who warned correctly were either eased out or passed over for promotion.
Col. B. Abbott Dickson had warned his superiors in a written report on December 10, based on interviews with German prisoners, that the Ardennes offensive was coming. On December 12, General Edwin Sibert wrote a report saying no such attack was possible. Had the December 10 warning been heeded, the 106th Division, green and recently assigned to the area opposite the Ardennes for rest, would have been reinforced and lives possibly saved.
But Col. Dickson was now out of the Army, having retired because of lack of promotion. General Sibert had been promoted to a top-ranking intelligence officer in Germany.
Similarly, anent Pearl Harbor, Col. Otis Sadtler and Col. R.S. Bratton, both of whom had asked that Pearl Harbor be warned just prior to the attack, never received promotion during the war, while others around them did. Col. Bedell Smith, who did not act on Col. Sadtler's and Col. Bratton's recommendations, was now a General and deputy chief of staff.
He believes that the Army ought end such favoritism before seeking from Congress its first peacetime draft and joinder with the Navy.
Next, Mr. Pearson explains that Attorney General Tom Clark had taken a stand contrary to that of the attorneys general of 45 states who wanted control for the states of the submerged oil and mineral lands, Mr. Clark favoring instead Federal control. He was going ahead with a Supreme Court test of the issue, despite the heavy opposition.
Marquis Childs indicates that, as when Congress had recessed for a month in August, when the Congressmen went home for Christmas they would hear from the returning veterans, the hottest topic being the shortage of housing. It was why the President had decided to reinstitute controls on the prices of building materials. It was also why Congress had appropriated 160 million dollars for emergency housing from the abandoned training barracks.
As it was, veterans were forced to live in basements or garages, sometimes separate from their families. Vacancy rates had gone down in most major cities, in some cases to less than one percent. New construction was often limited to expensive housing.
Samuel Grafton reports that there were many starving children in Germany, pictures of whom had surfaced to tug at the heart strings of Americans. And it was working. But it was also necessary to retain perspective, that there were starving children in every European country. Thus, there was no proper call for relief per se of Germany, apart from the rest of Europe.
The same reasoning prevented undue concern for dismantling German industry and transferring it to other European countries whose industries were stripped by Germany during the war. Those who showed concern regarding this removal were unconcerned over the industry of France, Russia, Italy, and Britain. As Germany had once claimed stewardship over the rest of Europe, it was now too late to allow Germany to ignore the Continent.
A lieutenant colonel in the 517th Parachute Infantry Regiment, stationed at Fort Bragg, writes a letter informing that the 517th had paraded through Charlotte on December 7, 1945 to help in the sale of Victory Bonds.The Regiment, he states, which had fought in Italy, Southern France, and in the Battle of the Bulge, had been quite disappointed in Charlotte.
Turnout at the parade was low as both newspapers, The Observer and The News, he contends, had given only a paragraph each to the parade before its occurrence, and a radio program on the parade, in which an officer and enlisted man were supposed to participate, had to be canceled when housing for the two could not be found.
The Regiment was even taunted by spectators with such insults as, "My heroes," and "I'll take the Navy," because, he presumes, they were unaware of the combat record of the men.
The colonel finds it an insult to the "gracious standards of the South".
Where did you hear that, colonel, in the funny papers? Gone With the Wind?
In any event, the editors offer apology for the low turnout but explain that the newspaper carried a substantial story which was not carried in the edition which was distributed across the state, as local stories were always pared down in that edition.
Framed Edition
Links-Date -- Links-Subj.