The Charlotte News
Saturday, May 26, 1945
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the previous day's raid of 500 Superfortresses had resulted in 19 lost planes, the most of any B-29 raid to date. The Japanese press reported that the Imperial Palace had been destroyed in the raid. The report was entirely accurate.
One of the returning pilots stated that he would not be surprised if they had not singed a little Hirohito's hair.
The Japanese radio blared that the Americans would get a return taste of that which they had inflicted on the Japanese people, claiming that the American bombers had deliberately targeted schools, hospitals, and shrines.
Unfortunately, Hirohito, the dumb little evil bastard who started the whole thing in 1931, survived the attack and survived the war, even was invited to the White House by President Ford on one occasion.
Anyone so dumb as to think this evil bastard somehow a representative of Heaven probably ought join the bastard in Hell. We don't normally believe in capital punishment, but for Hirohito, who was no moderate except as the most hardened mass murderer appears moderate beside the Devil incarnate, and the others of the Japanese High Command, and the Nazis, capital punishment was too good. They were warring hellions. Do not kid yourself. It easy to appear humble, even meek, behind Palace walls, a little creep spoiled to death by a nation engrossed in the worship of iconography, as surely as the Old South or any other culture based on a feudal or royal system whereby a sovereign has imputed to him or her a direct line to God and is perceived as acting as God's incarnation or representative on earth, with absolute governmental mandates to go with it, brainwashing economically and by enforced subservience, as a child to a parent, the populace through time.
There was no Showa, just a dumb little spoiled bastard who should have had his neck wrung—and likely would have were it not for the fact that General MacArthur felt a certain tenderness for royalty, aspiring as he did to it.
The House Appropriations Committee announced that in the coming year, Japan would be bombed more than two and a half times as hard as Germany during the previous twelve months.
In the area of Okinawa, a Japanese air raid of mixed aircraft had damaged eleven vessels of the American Fleet on Thursday night and into the following day. Few American casualties were reported. The battle lasted eighteen hours. Five suicide planes had attempted to belly-land on an American airfield at Yontan. One made the landing and the others were shot down. Several soldiers, packed with grenades, emerged from the plane and began setting fire to American planes until shot down by American troops.
Marines were now driving tanks through Naha and artillery barrages were being fired at Shuri as rain slowed ground operations.
Admiral Nimitz announced that there had been 35,116 American casualties on Okinawa since March 18, when Navy operations began, and April 1, when the landings had occurred, including 9,602 dead in all forces. Japanese dead only in ground operations were thus far counted as 48,103. Fully 4,247 Japanese planes had been destroyed in the Ryukyus campaign, including 518 taken out by B-29's.
On Luzon, the Japanese hold-outs in the mountains northeast of Manila were showing signs of being ready to surrender following the trap thrown around them after the Americans had captured Ipo Dam the previous week. Enemy soldiers were being killed at the rate of 100 to 200 per day. The previous day, twenty Japanese soldiers gave up and stated that others would like to follow. On the east coast, Infanta and Misua were captured by guerillas. The Americans and Filipino forces, including the guerillas, now held a solid line from the Bicol Peninsula in the south to the central part of the island.
On Mindanao, close-quarters fighting continued north of Davao, but peak enemy resistance had passed. The 24th Infantry Division on Thursday took Lincanan Airfield, the last of six airfields on Mindanao to fall.
The House approved, split nearly along party lines, by a vote of 197 to 174 the measure to extend by three years the reciprocal trade agreements and to provide the President the ability to reduce tariffs by as much as 50 percent below rates prevailing at the beginning of 1945.
Former President Herbert Hoover had been invited to the White House by President Truman to discuss the world food situation. President Hoover, during and after World War I, had coordinated food supply for the starving masses of Europe. It was the first time the former President would come to the White House since leaving in 1933.
The soldier who had hit and kicked nine Nazis while they were prisoners of war the previous September and sentenced in October to the brig for two years, receiving a dishonorable discharge, had, following House Majority Leader John McCormack's complaint to the Army, been completely restored in rank and privilege and released from the stockade. Representative McCormack had termed the sentence "ridiculous" given the reports of Nazi atrocities.
In San Francisco, there continued to linger some doubt as to whether the Big Five could muster the necessary additional 12 votes to accomplish a two-thirds majority in committee to approve the Yalta plan for unilateral veto on the Security Council for either investigation or action anent aggression by one country against another.
There was a prospect of an arms conference of the United Nations following the end of the Pacific war. That conference would seek agreement to limit arms among the nations to relieve budgets run up during the war.
Unfortunately, this aspect of the U.N. formulation could not keep pace with changing events and the coming onto the scene of the unleashed energy from the fission of tiny particles which no one can see with the naked eye, only the results. Yet, no one but a crazy person denies the existence of the atom and its fission, unfortunately necessitated to keep pace in the time-latched impulsion of inimical prospects and, in self-defense, to avoid being annihilated.
C. W. Tillett, Charlotte City Attorney, acting as a special correspondent for The News at the conference, presented his final piece, only the second to appear on the front page, stating that he believed that the conference was going to turn out successfully, that the delegates were competent and hard working, that too much had been made of stories regarding the departures of the various foreign ministers, as the remaining workers were quite capable of handling the routine business once basic decisions had been made. He further opined that the complaints of blandness and not enough bickering had derived from reporters accustomed to covering political conventions, that the critical distinction from these affairs needed to be made: the U. N. Conference was a constitutional convention, not a political one.
On the editorial page, "A Liberal Man" criticizes Senator Robert Wagner of New York for his co-sponsorship, along with Representative John Dingell of Michigan, of a bill to expand Social Security and establish a program of national health care. With the country 250 billion dollars in debt from the war, it was no time for such extravagance, argues the piece. The bill also proposed to provide the states a billion dollars over the course of a decade to build hospitals and health centers—which the editorial asserts would likely lead to Federal control over those medical facilities.
The Social Security aspects of the bill would take away from the states the control of unemployment insurance and hand it to the Federal Government for determination. It would be uniform throughout the states despite the fact that in the larger states, unemployment benefits would exceed the average daily wage in a state such as North Carolina.
It finds Senator Wagner to be too free with other people's money.
We have noted before this rather silly notion of "local control" of matters, as proposed and ballyhooed often by newspapers because their editors and publishers have the means to influence matters locally and statewide but not nationally, at least no more than any other citizen.
The people vote for local, state, and Federal representatives. There is a bureaucracy entrenched at each level. One often acts to check abuses by the other, with the Federal Government being the trump card. But to find solace somehow in "states rights" and "local control" is nothing but the result of propaganda aimed at the fool who really believes that there is any great difference between local control and Federal Government control, insofar as the operative word of concern, "control". Indeed, local control often works to the great disadvantage of the average citizen, usually so to those without money. Federal oversight is the best insurance of protection of civil liberties, lest you get your head beat in by some goon masquerading as a police officer
"An Awareness" praises Dr. Charles L. King of Houston in his statement to the Presbyterian assembly at Montreat, urging "greater Christian social action". He was not advocating that the Church move wholly into the realm of social and political action but rather that it lead its congregation in adopting Christian attitudes regarding social problems such as widespread poverty in the South and one-crop tenant farming.
Another Dr. King, at this time 16 years old, would take up this notion and apply it with great impact from within the Baptist Church.
"The GOP Answers" finds laudatory the fact that the Bretton Woods proposals had passed the House Banking Committee 23 to 3, with full bipartisan support. Eight Republicans voted for the resolution, even with its International Monetary Fund which many banking interests disfavored. The approval was significant in that the Republicans had now taken a solid stand behind international cooperation, something to which they usually only paid lip service outside the war effort, itself.
"Loaded Dice" predicts that the Labor Party in Britain would regret producing conditions which had mandated a general election. History as a guide suggested that the out-party during wartime would be defeated. The Government had won victories in two previous wartime elections. It appeared that the Conservatives and thus Prime Minister Churchill would win overwhelming support.
Actually, the editorial misstates the history somewhat, without fully exploring the possibilities. Presumably, it is referring to the general election of 1812, shortly after the inception of the War of 1812, in which the Tories maintained power, and that in 1900 during the Second Boer War and the Boxer Rebellion in China, in which the Conservatives maintained power, or perhaps the election of December, 1918, a month after the Armistice, in which David Lloyd George and the Liberals, in power since 1911, would retain power under a Coalition Government. There were, however, other indications that Britain, following prolonged active warfare, would change horses on the other side of the stream. A bit over a year after the Crimean War had ended in early 1856, for instance, a general election was held in April, 1857, and the Liberals succeeded the Conservatives.
The piece, however, continues recounting, a fortiori, that the Prime Minister had won votes of confidence in Commons overwhelmingly in 1942, twice in 1944, and in the previous February, the latter regarding the decision on Poland reached at Yalta.
It concludes that Winnie's "day is not done." While correct, in that Mr. Churchill would be returned to power in 1951, the Conservatives would be defeated at this juncture, in the July election, and Labor, led by Clement Atlee, would become the majority party in Commons for the next six years.
The excerpt from the Congressional Record finds Representative Walter Brehm of Ohio standing against the proposed amendment to the Constitution to enable majority voting by both houses of Congress to approve treaties rather than the rule mandating a two-thirds majority in the Senate only. He wanted to instruct House Majority Leader John McCormack of Massachusetts that the Leader's statement that the bill would "shape and mold" the thinking of the constituents back home was contrary to their proper role as Congressmen, that they were there to serve the people, not to shape and mold opinions with propaganda.
Apparently to test attention span, Congresswoman Jessie Sumner of Illinois asked whether Mr. Brehm thought that any foreign nation would seek to hurl buzz bombs at the United States, to which Mr. Brehm, also seeming to test whether anyone was listening, responded that there was a lot of buzzing going on in the well of the House, "far in excess of honey actually being produced."
Congresswoman Edith Rogers then asked Mr. Brehm whether it was not the case that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was provided confidential information while the House Foreign Affairs Committee was not, that the reason for the discrepancy was the Senate's treaty confirmation power.
Mr. Brehm responded that it was so and Ms. Rogers asked whether then ratification of the bill would not be a good step for the House to insure that it was kept up to date on foreign affairs so that they might better inform their constituents.
Mr. Brehm responded, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing."
Drew Pearson first reports of the Surplus Property Board coming to a decision to release to rural hospitals and health clinics the surplus military medical equipment and supplies. There was concern that some of the states might withhold it from black hospitals and clinics and so Washington would oversee the distribution process to insure fairness.
He next relates of the gripe of enlisted men and front line observers fresh from Guam that the officers' quarters there were fancy, each man above lieutenant receiving a private room and other officers bunking two to a room, while the wounded men from the fronts were relegated to rude tent quarters with dirt floors.
General Wild Bill Donovan, head of the O.S.S., ("Oh So Secret"), had sent a series of secret cables to Russell Forgan, former Chicago banker, in Paris, asking him to interrogate directors of I. G. Farben, the conglomerate seized from Nazi Germany by the Army. Farben had collaborated with Alcoa and Standard Oil of New Jersey to retain patents for synthetic rubber, magnesium, and high octane gasoline during the war such that the American public could not enjoy their fruits. General Donovan wanted the directors segregated from one another and kept under control. He also wanted the Farben files.
The move had amazed other American officials for the fact that the O.S.S. had among its agents and employees scions of the Mellons, the J. P. Morgans, and other large banking and industrial firms, some with interests in German patents. It was also of note that the O.S.S. was performing the investigation rather than the Justice Department.
He notes that Attorney General Francis Biddle had recently informed the Senate that, with the war over, many of the prior cartels were being readied for reactivation in Europe. Many of the Senators were displeased at the news.
Well, the solution to the riddle of Time
Marquis Childs discusses the efforts in Congress to eviscerate the Office of Price Administration and thus open the way to post-war inflation in the name of ending shortages. Just because the war in Europe had ended did not mean that OPA controls could be lifted without negative economic consequence.
But even the advocates of OPA were troubled by problems in enforcement. OPA had sought the help of the FBI but had been turned down on the basis that the Bureau had too many other things to investigate during the war. The agency had turned to the Treasury and received some help, but the Treasury did not have the extensive field offices and agents that the FBI had. Moreover, the FBI did not like the Treasury invading its enforcement and investigative territory. Some in Congress were proposing an amendment to the enabling bill to mandate FBI help for OPA.
Chester Bowles, as OPA head, had done a tremendous job under trying conditions, with Americans seeking at every turn to circumvent the controls placed on prices and availability of goods. The Congress had nothing but respect for him.
A letter writer advocates sending to Japan John L. Lewis following the war to set up unions so that Japan would be as heavily unionized as America and thus not allowed to compete with low wages such that American manufacturing jobs would go overseas.
While sounding good on the surface, it would have also meant slower revival of the Japanese economy, likely stimulating various revolts and coups of one sort or another. Certainly through time, however, once the economy was back up and running, the concept was salutary for both Japan and all competing countries.
Dorothy Thompson, writing from Rome, looks into the future to see Tito's attempt at grabbing territory in southern Austria, Trieste, and Slovene as being not for the glory of Yugoslavia, as the territory would have been of little use to the country. Rather, it was done at the behest of Russia, who wanted to re-create the Austro-Hungarian Empire under Russian control, including Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, much of Rumania, and all Yugoslavia excepting Serbia, with Trieste as a gateway to the Adriatic. Tito, she explains, was not a Yugoslav nationalist, having been educated in Vienna and having spent years in Moscow training as an agent for Russia in Central Europe.
Russia had brought unrationed food to Vienna to make an impression on the Austrians. The Renner Government set up by the Russians was a coalition, but with Communists in control of Education and the Interior, thus controlling the police and propaganda, and an Hungarian at the head of the Ministry of Defense.
Should the Soviets manage to re-establish the Austro-Hungarian Empire and combine it with Eastern Germany, it would constitute a political coup against which there would be no counter-balancing, politically organized effort from the West. The Atlantic Charter recognized the principle of sovereign independence. There was no support provided for those who wanted European federation, a concept supported by the Russians. In Italy, the three major parties wanted a European federation, and the concept had support in Austria, France, and Germany. Such a federation would permit Germany to be divided ultimately into several states without Balkanization.
France was returning to a pre-war principle of imperialism with rising Communism and Britain was preoccupied with protecting its Empire. The United States was not taking any policy stand on Europe. And yet it was the only nation whose withdrawal from the Continent would be viewed with dismay by the masses of Europeans. Ms. Thompson advocates the adoption of a European policy by the United States to lead the way in counterpoise to the Russians and, implicitly, despite the official dissolution of the Comintern two years earlier, the prospect of Communism being the system of choice in Europe.
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