The Charlotte News
Monday, November 11, 1946
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President presented a written statement at a press conference this date, urging "wisdom and restraint" in the divided government to begin in January for the first time since 1933. He stated that the election would not alter the foreign or domestic "interests or problems" of the nation. He was not aware of any forthcoming resignations from the Cabinet, had no information whether Paul Porter would resign as head of OPA. (Secretary of State Byrnes, however, would resign at the end of the year.) He also stated that he had no information confirming rumors that General Eisenhower was about to resign as Army chief of staff. The President said that he accepted the judgment of the American people in the election.
The chief executive had junked all wage and price controls during the weekend, with the exception of those on rent, sugar and rice.
Mr. Truman placed a wreath at Arlington at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier this Armistice Day and said that peace and the welfare of the world were one package. Other ceremonies marked the day in the occupation zones of Europe, and in France at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
It was reported from Berlin that the Russians were manufacturing a copy of the American B-29 in factories beyond the Ural Mountains.
John L. Lewis met for the first time with Secretary of Interior J. A. Krug regarding the current coal dispute, trying to resolve the differences of interpretation of the May 29 contract between UMW and the Government, with Mr. Lewis seeking to reopen it for renegotiation and the Government insisting that it was good for the duration of Government operation of the mines. There was no word from either side as to progress. November 20 was the deadline for resolving the dispute without a strike.
In Montgomery, Ala., outgoing Governor Chauncey Sparks declared in a written statement, in reply to questions posed by the Associated Press, that "absolute segregation" was the "first essential of a workable society." He spoke against "outside interference" and said that the problems of the South could not be solved as long as there was harassment from the "cynics, the spiteful critics and platitudinous preachers, either without or within."
He believed that an amendment to the State Constitution just ratified by the electorate, which narrowed the qualifications of voters to eliminate "a flood of Negro registration", was a step in the right direction in ameliorating black-white relations. It required voters to be able to understand and explain any section of the U.S. Constitution, not just read and write it.
In other words, if, for instance, one smart-mouthed dawky were to come along who suggested that the Fifteenth Amendment suggested that all the citizens of the country had the right to vote and that denying any citizen that right was also contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause, why that individual obviously had not sense enough to get out of showa of rain and thus could not vote, probably deserved lynching, and certainly should be denied his or her franchise. To the contrary, if the black boy or girl who understood their proper place stated humbly, without looking the white registraw directly in the face, that "dat der Constistushein mean exac'ly what it say, dat I 'as no rights whate'er 'ceptin' what Mis'a Sparky give me," why then that fine upstanding credit to his or her race could register and vote just as the white folks told him or her to do, without stirring up racial strife in the community, and all would be fine.
He also said: "Contact is irritating [and] is not essential except in business or labor relations."
Executive Secretary of the NAACP, Walter White, issued a statement from New York in response, saying that it was unfortunate that a Governor of a Southern State wanted to take such a stand to perpetuate "segregation, discrimination, and bigotry," at such a time as 1946, and to keep the South as a "nation apart".
In Bloomfield, N.J., a father attended a wedding at which his daughter was scheduled to be maid of honor. Smiling, he told the bride and groom that she could not attend and made up excuses. She had been fatally injured in an automobile accident on the way to the wedding. He said, "What is done cannot be undone. Life must go on."
A woman mental patient on the way from Miami to a mental institution in Astabula, Ohio, somehow had disappeared near Charlotte. Two men claiming to be police officers had approached the car in which she had been riding with her husband and her brother and took the woman away, saying that they would transport her to the police department. The three had stopped briefly on the side of the road when the other car drove up. The woman told the strangers that she had been beaten by her husband and brother. Neither the County Police nor the City Police had any report on the woman's whereabouts.
A snowstorm struck the Rocky Mountains and Western plains states. A tornado cut through Pointe Coupee Parish in Louisiana.
In Charlotte, hundreds gathered at Independence Square to celebrate the 28th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice which brought to an end hostilities in World War I. School bands played "Our Director March" by Bigelow.
On the editorial page, "'To Make a Permanent Conquest...'" finds the words of President Wilson on November 11, 1918, that everything for which the country had fought in war had been accomplished, to have been largely forgotten in the 28 years since, overshadowed by memories of the late war. It was now understood that nothing had been accomplished at that earlier juncture, though seeming so at the time.
The term "Armistice" in the future might become applicable to both world wars, and distinction between the two, it thinks, might virtually disappear, that they would be considered simply one long war, divided by an interim of years.
President Wilson had also cautioned that conquering with arms was only part of the battle, a "temporary conquest", that the permanent conquest had to be won on the field of international esteem. That part of his statement had not been remembered. It suggests that it be recalled henceforth on every Armistice Day, in May, in August, and November.
Fifty years ago today, on November 11, 1963
"The Gi Democrats Open Ranks" finds the local GI Democrats opening their slate of candidates, to be fielded in the City Council and mayoral races in the spring, to civilians. It was a departure from what the state organization had urged when it had formed in the previous spring. Then, it was advocating a GI crusade. That sort of rhetoric was no longer present in the local organization. The change appeared to be motivated by a practical decision to try to win races and make their voices heard, if necessary, through non-veteran officeholders.
"What Manner of Men Are These?" seeks to find out of the make-up of the 80th Congress, beyond its obvious conservative tendency. It sets forth a table from The Congressional Quarterly indicating the relative percentages of various occupations held by the members. Of the Representatives, 56 percent would be lawyers, and among Senators, 64 percent. The remainder varied. The average age of the House would be 44, seven years younger than the 79th Congress, while the Senate would be 56. Senator-elect Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin was the youngest Senator at 37. Senator Arthur Capper of Kansas, at 81, was the oldest.
Senate Democrats were two years older on average than Republicans. Only 15 percent of the House would be veterans of World War II, and only 6 percent of the Senate had been in service. Most of the veterans were newly elected Republicans.
Although par for the course, the preponderance of lawyers populating both houses, it finds, was disturbing. While necessary to have good legal talent in Congress to do its business of writing laws, it also made for increasing numbers of laws and intricate language, such that, it believes, one day, inexorably, the American language would be supplanted by "gobbledygook and Latin".
A piece from the Stanley News & Press, titled "Political Parties and Progress", states that politicians ought take responsibilities for failures as well as successes. The Republicans in North Carolina had taken out an ad during the campaign stressing that North Carolina was near the bottom of the states in roads, education, health, mental institutions, and other areas.
The piece suggests that, while the Republicans would never be a viable force in North Carolina politics, a third party should be formed attracting members from both parties.
Drew Pearson tells of the Arkansas brain trust at the White House, including reconversion director John Steelman, Treasury Secretary John W. Snyder, and Leslie Biffle, Secretary of the Senate and close friend of Mr. Truman, all being upset about the suggestion of Arkansas Senator William Fulbright that the President resign after appointing a Republican successor to be Secretary of State. The Arkansas clique had never felt much affinity toward Mr. Fulbright in the first place. He had married a woman from Pennsylvania and had lived for a time in London. The White House patronage in Arkansas was distributed through Senator John McClellan, not Senator Fulbright. The White House clique claimed it to be the reason for Mr. Fulbright's suggestion.
His supporters, however, insisted that there was no dark motive behind it. Senator Fulbright had originally introduced the resolution which led to creation of the U.N. and had urged participation by Senator Vandenberg at Paris and in New York, was a genuine statesman.
He next tells of the NLRB proposing on its own to make revisions to the Wagner Act, to beat Congress to the draw. The suggestions included holding unions equally liable for breaches of contract to those of management, and that employers be allowed to vote on union recognition and on strikes.
Despite Admiral Chester Nimitz being given an honorary degree by Notre Dame, he attended the Navy-Notre Dame football game the previous weekend cheering heavily for the Navy. He said that he wanted revenge against Notre Dame coach Frank Leahy for beating him in horseshoes during the war when he had served as a Navy physical education officer. Notre Dame had won the game and Admiral Nimitz wanted therefore to challenge the coach to another round of horseshoes.
Finally, he tells of FDR having a saying that the party receiving the most contributions in the latter days of the campaign would win. This time, the Democrats had taken in $300,000 in the last three days, but lost.
Harold Ickes discusses the appointment by the President a week earlier of the Atomic Energy Commission, chaired by TVA head David Lilienthal. While the entire commission, says Mr. Ickes, was well-qualified, Mr. Lilienthal was not the first choice of Secretary of State Byrnes, who received, along with Bernard Baruch, head of the U.N. AEC, scant notice of the appointments. Mr. Byrnes favored defeated Senator Robert La Follette as chairman, as had Senator Vandenberg. Mr. La Follette had indicated that he did not wish to serve under Mr. Lilenthal and also declined to be appointed head of TVA. Mr. Lilienthal had once served under Mr. La Follette's brother Phillip when the latter was Governor of Wisconsin.
Mr. Ickes says that Mr. Lilienthal was a man of energy and ability, but lacked humility and had assiduously sought the job of chairman of the AEC. In the pursuit of ambition, he had a tendency to cut corners. The members needed to assert themselves to avoid being dominated by the chairman. As TVA head, he had so dominated the board.
Samuel Grafton tells of a new type of Republican, post-election, one who tread warily on the subject of altering the Wagner Act, mindful now of the strength of labor in the Northern cities, which had become a new ally for the Republicans.
Republican thinking appeared to have a schism, those who wished to proceed slowly and those who wanted to go fast. The Republicans wanted to please farmers by supporting farm price increases and also to please business through tax cuts and removal of controls on the economy. The Republicans had to walk a tightrope with regard to labor reform, with it now dependent on labor support in the big cities for sustaining its power.
There would also likely be a major readjustment between Southern Democrats and Republicans. The Southern conservatives were now losing committee chairmanships for having sided with the Republicans to dismantle the New Deal. Cloture of filibuster could now occur in the Republican Senate to block attempts to forestall anti-poll tax and anti-lynching legislation, and to make the Fair Employment Practices Commission a permanent agency of the Government, not simply an executive commission formed from the emergency war powers as it had been before being defunded by the 79th Congress. An end to poll taxes, he thinks, could lead to more liberal members of Congress from the South. (The Republicans still, however, needed the Southern Democrats to overcome a presidential veto, requiring at least 65 votes or two-thirds of those present in a quorum.)
The President now could exert leverage on the Republicans through the power of patronage to moderate their course for the ensuing two years. The GOP now had to consider all of the citizenry, and there was no reason to relieve them of the responsibility to govern moderately, the responsibility of any party in a democracy. It was a good reason for President Truman to reject the suggestion of Senator Fulbright that he resign after appointing a Republican Secretary of State to succeed him—a suggestion the President had unceremoniously rejected without its slightest consideration.
A letter from P. C. Burkholder, the ten-gallon hat wearing Republican candidate for the Tenth District Congressional race, including Charlotte, which he lost to Hamilton Jones, expresses appreciation to his supporters in the campaign. He urges the people to get together to defeat the New Deal, organized against the general public and backed by the press—never minding the fact that the overwhelming majority of American newspapers never endorsed FDR in any of the four campaigns, only 17 percent, including The News, having endorsed him in 1944.
Anyway, Mr. Burkholder lost.
He concludes that The News had mentioned that he scored the lowest Republican vote ever in Mecklenburg history, but had failed to note how low his opponent's vote had been—by inference, suggesting his own illustrous campaign to have been not quite so as that of Mr. Jones.
The editors note that they had apparently pleased no one. Mr. Jones had reacted to their editorial of the previous week, "Mr. Jones Goes to Washington", by saying that the editorial sought to discredit him and that he believed the newspaper was suffering from latent Republicanism.
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