The Charlotte News

Thursday, September 13, 1945

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Eighth Army headquarters had provided temporary power to the Japanese Government to assist in capturing the remaining war criminals on General MacArthur's list, provided that they demonstrated progress within two days.

The Navy Minister in Tojo's Cabinet, Admiral Shigetaro Shimada, surrendered to an American officer at his home.

Field Marshal General Sugiyama, who had been assigned the task of defending Japan's Kanto plain against American invasion, shot himself through the head before he could be arrested. His wife also committed suicide.

Correspondent Duane Hennessy reports that Tojo, in his first press interview since being hospitalized on Tuesday for his self-inflicted bullet wound to the chest, stated that he possessed inadequate information on which to make comment as to whether Sabaro Kurusu knew of the attack plans on Pearl Harbor while he was negotiating with Secretary of State Hull in Washington in latter November and through December 6, 1941.

Significantly, however, the General did not clear him of the charge and it was Tojo who had sent Mr. Kurusu to Washington. No solid evidence has ever surfaced to resolve the issue one way or the other.

A photograph appears of Tojo looking out a window of his home as soldiers had arrived on Tuesday to arrest him, just before he shot himself.

Russell Brines reports that Prince Konoye, the Vice Premier of Japan, claimed to have attempted to meet with FDR during the summer of 1941, when he was still Premier, with a proposal to avoid war, but failed because of military opposition in Japan and the reputation of the Government as being mendacious.

The peace proposal had depended on the assurance of removal of Japanese troops from China, but, contended the Prince, the Americans refused to give any credence to such a promise as it depended on the military, and the Japanese Government had a history of not being able to control its military. He believed that had he been able to meet with the President, he could have effected "a basis for intervention of the Imperial house in the rising war tide within Japan".

He said that he had argued with War Minister Hideki Tojo regarding continued peace negotiations, and the rupture led to his resignation and the rise of Tojo in October, 1941 to the position of Premier. Prince Konoye further contended that the attack on Pearl Harbor was maintained under tight secrecy within a small coterie of military men immediately under Tojo and that he and all other civilians had known nothing of it.

Col. Joseph Meisinger, the chief of the Gestapo in Japan, had previously informed Mr. Brines that Prince Konoye had led the most pro-American faction in the Government and had been the strongest opponent of Tojo. The Prince agreed with this assessment, saying that he had been powerless to do anything to prevent the appointment in December, 1940 of Tojo as his War Minister, a move undertaken by the Army.

Mr. Brines also reported that two of the seven men sought as leaders of the Black Dragon secret society, Seigo Nakano and Kyohei Uchia, were both dead, the former from suicide, the latter from old age. A third man on the list, Takatora Ogata, was said to have no connection with the organization.

The Army and Navy provided its revised total casualties for World War II, through September 7, stating that 1,070,730 had been killed, captured, wounded, or were missing. Of these, the Army accounted for 922,302, 205,045 of whom had been killed, 571,608 wounded, 25,082 missing, and 120,567 taken prisoner.

The Navy suffered 53,809 killed, 79,752 wounded, 11,262 missing, and 3,605 captured.

Thus the count of American dead in the war stood at 258,854 at this point, with another 36,344 missing, which equates closely to the final numbers.

The Army announced that it expected to release an additional 1.3 million men by Christmas, 700,000 already having been discharged since May 8. Demobilization was running ahead of schedule with 400,000 slated to be discharged in September rather than the planned 250,000. By January, the monthly rate would be 672,000.

In New York, the largest tickertape parade in the city's history greeted General Jonathan Wainwright, hero of Corregidor who had been in a Japanese prison camp for the previous three years and two months prior to his release shortly after V-J Day.

A hurricane packing 135 mph winds was heading toward the Bahamas, expected to reach the islands by Friday.

According to the War Production Board, as soon as shoe production would reach the rate of 30 million pairs per month, shoe rationing could be ended. That rate was expected to be attained sometime in October. According to officials, effectively, shoe rationing had ended, as consumers, knowing that rationing would soon end, were spending their rationing coupons. Many manufacturers during rationing had discontinued their cheaper shoes because consumers tended to purchase more expensive shoes on the notion that they would last longer.

In Baltimore, a Navy gun crew officer managed to get his tongue caught in the bridgework of his false teeth and could not pry it loose, had to report to the Marine Hospital.

You wouldn't smile if it were your tongue tied that way.

On the editorial page, "Troubles Begin" comments on the first signs of problems in the occupation effort having cropped up in Korea out of the decision to leave the Japanese in charge in the southern half of the country, overseen by the American occupation forces.

The day had arrived when the predictions of James Young and Samuel Grafton had come true: the Americans were siding with the Japanese against the people with whom and for whom the war had been fought. The same was true in Japan itself, where the AMG was forced to prop up the Emperor.

"Slump, Boom—?" finds the country slipping into the predicted post-war slump as unemployment figures steadily rose from canceled war industry contracts. Nevertheless, the stock market was booming, predictive of a major economic boom to come. Many of the unemployed were expected to be going back to work before the end of the year.

"Working Plan" favors the compromise full employment bill emerging from the Senate committee, under which, instead of raising unemployment to $25 per week for 26 weeks, the state maximums would be maintained with the number of weeks the benefits would be paid extended to 26.

"Run-Around" expresses disappointment that President Truman had apparently determined not to appoint Judge John J. Parker of the Court of Appeals to the vacancy on the Supreme Court, instead providing him the position as alternate on the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal. It suggests that Judge Parker's equanimity throughout the process and willingness to sit as the alternate confirmed the view that he was qualified for the Court, his nomination to which having been defeated by a single vote in 1930 under President Hoover.

The excerpt from the Congressional Record has Representative Clare Boothe Luce of Connecticut reading a piece from the Progressive by the eminent historian Charles A. Beard, recommending further investigation into Pearl Harbor.

Per her usual course, Ms. Luce picked her authority with due regard to her own politics. As W. J. Cash had pointed out years earlier, Dr. Beard was the foremost isolationist among the nation's historians. Thus, it is hardly surprising that he would advocate yet another investigation into Pearl Harbor, the Congressional investigation being the third major investigation. The first investigation in January, 1942 had been overseen by a Republican, Justice Owen Roberts, and the Army and Navy, hardly a partisan group, had conducted the second investigation in the summer and fall of 1944. It was obvious at this juncture that the Republicans were, in the hope of gaining Republican support both in 1946 and 1948, seeking to use Pearl Harbor as a political pickaxe to try to undermine the Democrats and President Truman by association with FDR.

Drew Pearson discusses the boondoggling activity of the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, designed as a means by which the Army could, through officers, enlisted men, and civilians, assess the level of damage in Germany caused by the bombing raids. But instead of photographing just the bombing damage as intended, many businesses were using the photographers to photograph German inventions and patents. Some of the Army officers of the Survey were collecting art or German cameras. One plane of the Survey was sent on a mission from Frankfurt to Paris to retrieve a case of cognac.

Dorothy Thompson comments on President Truman's message to Congress and his overall performance, finding it on the whole very good thus far. His message continued New Deal policy but with a sensitivity to the need for a renewed role by the Congress. For instance, to the disappointment of many labor leaders, he only recommended a higher minimum wage without setting a fixed goal of between 65 and 75 cents an hour as recommended by labor. He was also sensitive to the needs of business, favoring an overall tax reduction and accelerated war contracts settlements. In addition to a proposed hike in the minimum wage, labor would receive unemployment benefits increased over those afforded by the states.

A letter writer offers that the Allied Military Government in Japan would need to improve wages and hours of the Japanese. The workers, he says, earned twenty cents per hour and worked for twelve hours per day. He asserts that at those wages and hours, the cotton mills at home would be unable to compete. So, he favored pay commensurate with that in the U.S., an international minimum wage.

A second letter writer wishes to correct the misperception that Archbishop Spellman of New York was the "Military Vicar of the United States Armed Forces", as his title often appeared in the press. Rather, he was officially acting in that capacity only with respect to Roman Catholics in the service.

—Yeah, well, same to you.

Marquis Childs compares the Republican Party since 1932 to King Canute who built his house on the sand between high and low tide and ordered the sea to stay back. Yet, Congressman Charles Halleck of Indiana, chairman of the Congressional Campaign Committee for the party, stated that the Republicans would run on traditional conservatism in 1946.

It was the same basis on which the British Conservatives had run in Britain, and which had proved so disastrous at the polls in July. The Tories had run on an economic philosophy of tightening the belt, deriding the socialism advocated by their opponents in Labor.

Yet, the Republicans were not planning to run on tightening the belt. To the contrary, they favored deep tax cuts. Representative Harold Knutson of Minnesota, the ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, favored an across-the-board flat cut of 20 percent. Mr. Childs suggests that such a policy would be inflationary and would cause the need for Government intervention in the economy, anathema to Republicans.

The President, by contrast, had suggested some tax cuts but only to be undertaken with caution. Senator Walter George of Georgia, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, favored a 15 to 18 percent tax cut, still not as much that favored by Mr. Knutson.

Effectively, the Republicans were opposing the President's effort to effect a gradual readjustment from a war economy to a peacetime economy. Mr. Childs believes that a sad commentary on American political life. The Republicans were entitled to disagree but were also then expected to put forth an affirmative alternative, not merely oppose.

As to the Dorman Smith...