Monday, July 23, 1945

The Charlotte News

Monday, July 23, 1945

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that a light force of the Third Fleet had entered Tokyo's outer bay and wrecked a four-ship convoy. Another light force had bombarded Chichi Jima 550 miles to the southeast.

Seventy-five to a hundred B-29's had hit the Ube synthetic oil facility on Honshu.

Admiral Nimitz announced that on Wednesday, carrier planes had blown the top off of one of the two last seaworthy Japanese battleships. The pilots had sunk or damaged 21 enemy vessels.

During the prior 14 days of steady prowling by the Fleet in Japanese waters without contest, the carrier planes had sunk or damaged 791 vessels and small craft and destroyed or damaged 596 planes.

Japanese radio predicted that landings were being readied by the American forces for both the coast of China and Japan. Some 5,000 troops out of Europe were disembarking from Manila to begin the process of aggregating for an amphibious invasion.

Lt. General Jimmy Doolittle had arrived on Okinawa to take command of the likewise newly arrived Eighth Air Force, formerly in action under his command over Europe, and stated that they would be undertaking missions from Okinawa over Japan within a mere eight days, by August 1. The Air Force would be comprised of B-29's and the necessary complement of P-47 Mustangs to serve as cover. Half of the airmen active in Europe had been transferred to the Pacific. The General thought it possible that air strength alone could lead to Japan's surrender but made no predictions that it definitely would be so.

Navy Captain Ellis Zacharias gave a talk in Japanese to Japan via a shortwave broadcast by the Office of War Information on Saturday night. He warned that if Japan did not soon surrender, there would be a "dictated peace", that the Japanese could not hope to deal with only the United States should they fail to surrender promptly. He suggested that the Atlantic Charter terms would embrace them if they were soon to submit to unconditional surrender. The broadcast had been approved by President Truman.

Observers believed it to be a warning that Russia would soon join the war in the Pacific.

The broadcast, however, carried other, far more ominous, implications, still unknown outside a select circle.

The Big Three met on Sunday, the sixth straight day of meetings. It was hoped that the conference could conclude during this week, before the Thursday release of the results of the July 5 general election in Britain. All indications were that the conference was proceeding in harmony.

As debate began on the U. N. Charter in the Senate, Senator Tom Connally of Texas, chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, urged quick ratification to send a resounding signal of support to the world. Figuratively, he pointed to the rear wall of the Senate chamber and suggested that it was covered in the blood of the fighting men in this war because of the failure of the Senate at the conclusion of the last war to ratify U. S. membership in the League of Nations.

Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan, also a delegate to the San Francisco Conference, likewise urged ratification.

In the American occupation zone of Germany during the weekend, 500,000 American troops searched every house in the sector and arrested 80,000 Germans, many of whom had been members of the SS, some of whom were posing as released prisoners-of-war and some even wearing American uniforms. Orders for the sweep had been issued three weeks earlier but had caught the Germans completely by surprise. Only two sought to escape and one was killed. The object of the arrests was to round up war criminals and seize caches of weapons and ammunition, as well as swiped American uniforms and K-rations. The American soldiers, however, did not find evidence of an organized German underground.

The News began publishing the names of Charlotte men returning from Europe.

In Paris, disorder was reported in the courtroom in which Marshal Henri Petain was making a plea before a special court trying him for treason. The prosecutor and defense attorneys got into a fight after the prosecutor had stated, "There are too many Germans in this room." After a demand from defense attorneys for an apology, he stated that he had said there were "too many people serving the German cause" in the courtroom, but that he considered them the same as Germans. That is when the dam broke and the fight began.

Marshal Petain contended that, while General De Gaulle had continued the struggle from abroad, he had "prepared the road to liberation" by remaining in France.

The Office of Price Administration dropped the meat rationing points for August, meaning that you can purchase more meat for your points starting next month.

Head 'em up; move 'em out.

On the editorial page, "Omnibus" suggests that, while, typically, veterans benefits after a war did not reach their peak until about 20 to 30 years following the war, as the generation matured, the present veterans, judging by the several bills before the House, would begin collecting on their benefits program right away.

It then synopsizes nine separate pending bills. The varied approach apparent among them suggested the need for a more coherent proposal to coordinate benefits properly.

"Who Believes?" finds it striking that, with the United Nations Charter having been signed by 50 nations, though not yet ratified by any of them, 46 of those nations were not engaged in the war against Japan. Only the British, Australians, and a few French were fighting along with the Americans.

It especially wonders why Russia could not forthwith join the fight, despite its nominal neutrality with respect to Japan, even though it had repudiated the renewal of that 1941 agreement in late March, still, however, technically effective until March, 1946.

The piece suggests that the Charter appeared to be simply the equivalent of a post-dated check.

"Renascence" posits that it could be generations before labor would be able to have a friend in the White House as FDR. Yet, the New Deal had not been altogether responsive to labor, as President Roosevelt had never fully coordinated the labor agencies under a central authority.

One of the President's failings had been retaining Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, even though she had wanted to resign in 1941. The War Labor Board had achieved some semblance of stability in the labor force after long effort during the months preceding the President's death.

The new Secretary, Judge Lewis Schwellenbach, had discovered that the Department had been emasculated in power by the War Labor Board and the War Manpower Commission, and was left with few powers of its own, with only the Board of Labor Statistics under its control, and even that being suspect in its collection of accurate data.

Secretary Schwellenbach wanted to restore those former powers, but was dealing with a Department being run on the order of a country store. The Secretary even had to approve every travel voucher in the Department.

The piece ventures that the new Secretary would, in time, be able to reform the Department.

He could, of course, blow it up and start over.

The excerpt from the Congressional Record has Senate Majority Leader Alben Barkley of Kentucky seeking a limitation on debate on the Bretton Woods proposal, following the debate on the proposed amendments before the Senate, which he hoped would be finished that day.

Drew Pearson reports that the House Ways and Means Committee had uncovered the fact that Jesse Jones, former Secretary of Commerce, had paid the $4,000 on behalf of Elliott Roosevelt to discharge in 1942 the $200,000 loan made to Mr. Roosevelt by John Hartford, head of A & P.

It appeared to be the reason that Mr. Jones had always seemed so confident in retaining his post under President Roosevelt, despite the problems the previous year when the Texas Revolt in the spring had been found to be organized by the nephew of Mr. Jones. That revolt entailed the threat to turn the Texas electoral votes over to Virginia Senator Harry Flood Byrd or someone else, despite Roosevelt winning the state in the general election, as a protest against Roosevelt policies on race and the Allwright decision of the Supreme Court, holding that Texas had to allow African-Americans to vote in the state-sponsored primary election.

He next reveals that Senators Richard Russell of Georgia, Burnet Maybank of South Carolina, and John McClellan of Arkansas had a misunderstanding regarding a $1.20 check in the Grosvenor House in London, in the Army mess hall in the basement of the hotel.

The cafeteria there was known as "Willow Run" because of "the assembly-line technique of piling the plate with food". One could chow down on a meal for between 20 cents for breakfast and 30 cents for dinner, while other London eateries charged three to five dollars for comparable cuisine. The meals at Willow Run were the equal of two-dollar meals in New York and Washington.

The three amigos, that is the Senators, were dining on a small balcony of Willow Run with a Navy officer, an area exclusively reserved for officers and afforded waitress service. When the British waitress presented the check, Senator Russell turned refusenik, protested that U. S. Senators dined as guests of the Army.

The waitress, nevertheless, insisted that she had no instructions of the type and so summoned her superior, another British waitress, who likewise knew of no exception. She, in turn, summoned the sergeant in charge of Willow Run, but he, too, stated that he lacked instructions.

Senator Russell doggedly persisted, nevertheless insistent that the Army was footing the bill for the three. The other two Senators, with greater seniority, sat in silence, apparently embarrassed at the persistence of their colleague.

A lieutenant was then summoned to the table, who stated that he likewise had no instructions, but would pay the bill and seek reimbursement later from the Army. Flustered at this sort of typical British appeasement, acquiescent putrescence, bumbling, incompetent subaltern reaction, Senator Russell went ahead and paid the bill.

It seems to us that this unfortunate international incident of British supercilious impudence was quite unnecessary and could have been thoroughly avoided with duly obeisant devoirs by what was instead the truculently obstinate staff, by its poll, saddled with such ad hominem effrontery as to be completely without servile civility in the face of an unrecognized scion of Georgian nobility.

Mr. Pearson next informs of the Army-Navy policy of continued procurement for a two-front war despite the fact that there was no longer a war in Europe. Senators feared that the practice would lead to problems in the economy. The problem had arisen by the fact that the Army had not cut back the slated 20 percent in purchases following V-E Day, the belief being, on the part of the Army and Navy, that Congress would not allot them anything otherwise after the war, and so they were preparing post-war stockpiles presently, despite the fact that the fleet was more than 40 times that of the existing Japanese fleet and 13 times that at the start of the war. Despite the fact that no more than 30,000 planes could be deployed in the Pacific war effectively, the Army and Navy had over 100,000 planes and were still ordering more. There was also an over-abundance of pilots, with a two-million man air corps.

The excess was wasting billions of dollars and complicating reconversion. President Truman had, before leaving for Potsdam, appointed three of his old assistants on the Truman Committee to be watchdogs over waste in the procurement situation.

Marquis Childs comments on the report by Dr. Vannevar Bush, head of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, recommending that foundations be created to foster independent research in all fields of science and to pay for the education of 6,000 high school students per year showing an aptitude for science, and an additional 300 graduate fellowships for college students. After four years, the annual cost would be 20 million dollars.

Evidence supported the premise that, had such a program been in effect by 1940, mobilization after Pearl Harbor would have been faster and more effective.

Dr. Bush urged selection of 100,000 men from the Army and Navy with scientific background and putting them to work in Europe or the U.S.

The OSRD was slated to disband at war's end.

That would now be only a matter of 22 days, thanks to the work of the Manhattan Project which had been part of the OSRD. Its fruits would become known to the world in just two short weeks from this date.

Samuel Grafton reports that the soldiers returning from Europe were having a hard time adjusting to scenes in American life, of civilians speeding by them on long-run limited trains as they sat waiting on platforms. The bitterness was exacerbated by the fact that the soldiers were going to have to go to the Pacific to fight the war there. So the civilians would be having their fun while the soldier was away yet again. Some were being demobilized, also hard on the emotions of those still having to serve. Letters were being posted to newspapers questioning whether children were more important than battle stars, or the reverse, in obtaining release.

The ordeal was a first of its kind in American history. And, meanwhile, unemployment was suddenly on the rise with demobilization. Prices were up and war bonds still needed to be sold.

The illusory end of the war, which had swept some of the nation with V-E Day, had been most evident in Congress. There had been inadequate pressure brought to bear to make the overnight Pullmans available only to soldiers and relegate civilians to day coaches. The lawmakers had likewise been dragging their feet on addressing the Truman-sponsored bill to provide $25 per week in unemployment compensation for former war workers. Thus far, Congress showed a disposition to work only for prosecution of the war and not with energy toward the transition to a peacetime economy.

A letter writer writes an open letter to Senator Josiah W. Bailey of North Carolina, opposing passage of the proposed compulsory one year of military training during peacetime. He states that, based on his information, the argument against it was being weakened by the assumption that all service men were in favor of it.

Another denunciatory letter, as on Saturday, responds to the racist letter of Thursday anent the striking laundry workers of Charlotte, this one beginning by suggesting the previous author did not know what a labor union was. She wonders what the author thought the laundry workers would eat and suggests that the prior writer, himself, should be drafted rather than the laundry workers, as he had recommended, merely for their demanding a higher than less than subsistence wage in a time of relative plenty.

She further astutely asserts, "If the Negroes have a lower standard of living than the white people, it's because of people like him."

As to the "Side Glances"...

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