The Charlotte News
Saturday, April 13, 1946
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the House voted to delay for five months further extension of the draft and to ban conscription of teenagers, limiting the minimum age to 20. Pursuant to the terms of the bill, therefore, no further inductions could take place before October 15, after which the President could order resumption of the draft should voluntary enlistments fail to meet the necessary manpower quotas. The bill would next go to the Senate.
Alex Singleton reports that Russia had sought prosecution of Generalissimo Francisco Franco as a war criminal. The Security Council delegates appeared informally to support permitting a representative from Spain to appear before the Council should it decide to hear Poland's complaint against the Franco Government as a threat to the peace of Europe by having allegedly amassed some 450,000 troops along the frontier with France.
Charles Grumich reports that Franco had invited the Security Council to come to Spain and conduct its own investigation of the charges by Poland that it was providing safe haven for Nazi scientists to conduct military research. Spain denied all of Poland's accusations.
Members of the Polish High Command at the start of the war in 1939 stated in London that had France gone through with its promised offensive in the event of attack by Germany, the war would have been limited to a fight on German soil. They based their assessment on the testimony at Nuremberg by Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, who stated that the Siegfried Line was so lightly defended, with only twenty divisions along its entire length, that France could have easily overrun it in September, 1939. The Polish officers' sources indicated that only eleven divisions were positioned along the Siegfried Line.
American Army officials in China announced the round-up of prominent Nazis who had been in hiding in China. They would be deported to Germany to face trial for war crimes. Some 1,500 Germans, including wives and children, were being taken into custody.
Radar equipment developed near the end of the war which could penetrate cloud cover enabled the safe landing of a Pan-Am Constellation passenger plane with 25 passengers aboard at Atsugi airstrip in Japan.
Angry Southern Democrats were considering whether to demand that the President dismiss Democratic National Committee chairman Robert Hannegan for the recent problems with a statement in the DNC magazine implicitly accusing the Southerners of acting against the interests of Americans in their vote for the Case anti-labor bill, and the sending out a letter of instructions to local chairmen to select "proper candidates" for the fall Congressional elections which the Congressmen believed suggested that the current Democrats in Congress were not up to par, or something.
Dick in the fall would supply the answer. For, as we know, Richard is the One.
Senator Scott Lucas of Illinois was leading an effort to cancel the atomic tests off Bikini Atoll set for early July, as being an invitation to a perception on the part of other nations that America intended hostile action.
The meat shortage in the country was becoming more acute.
About 8,000 sugar refinery workers were set to begin a strike at midnight this date at three major refineries, in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Baltimore. The refiners had offered a 13-cents per hour increase in wages and the unions had demanded 15 cents, raised to 18.5 cents in light of the continued refusal of management to negotiate.
Transportation workers struck in Lansing, Michigan, and TWA and Western Air pilots threatened a strike regarding their demanded salary increases, from $13,200 to $16,000 annually.
Nationwide, 760,000 workers remained on strike.
The South Carolina Legislature rejected proposed new regulations on the sale of liquor in that state, which took place through a licensing system.
Hal Boyle reports from Naples that the city was still the world's civic "sad sack", called by the locals the "cesspool of Italy", while others refused to recognize the city as Italian, calling it a part of Africa.
Mr. Boyle finds its conditions remindful of the state of Paris during the time of Francois Villon, a city where people preferred to do nothing for themselves if they could induce someone else to do it for them. They sold fake cameos on the street rather than work at legitimate occupations. Racketeers and thieves thrived. The city was, he says, Sing Sing without walls.
A story went that a committee sought to find one honest Neapolitan, found one old man who appeared upright, only to find him incensed at being labeled a Neapolitan, saying that he was from Padua.
Poverty was widespread and the streets were full of garbage. The black market ran rampant in the environment already beset by thievery.
A Russian farmer had adopted his jeep to chasing wolves away from his horses in the Baku area of Russia.
A diminutive fifteen year old orphan from France, Prudente Le Conte, who had stowed away on an American troopship, arriving in New York on March 12, remanded then to Ellis Island, was allowed by immigration officials to remain in the United States and would reside with an American couple.
As reported by a caption below a photograph, United Air Lines inaugurated a new "Diaper Special"
The inflight movie On the editorial page, "Postponement Doesn't Mean Death" is not about the Bikini tests, but rather the erection of a Veterans' Recreation Center in Charlotte and the decision to sell a lot purchased for the project after it was discovered that a $50,000 gift to build a building had illegal conditions attached. It was reported that the Mayor was offended at the City Council voting in his absence to sell the property. But given the circumstances, that did not appear a reasonable reaction. The editorial favors the center, but the time was not ripe for it. And, given the homeless veterans in the community, the first priority was to provide them with homes, not a recreation facility. "An Exercise in Futility" finds dark humor in an exchange before the Senate Banking Committee between Senator Homer Capehart of Indiana and Wilson Wyatt, emergency housing administrator. Mr. Capehart had suggested that the proposed bill to enable Mr. Wyatt to subsidize builders of low and medium-priced housing, place priorities on building materials for residential housing, and impose price ceilings on existing housing would give Mr. Wyatt unlimited power which could wreck the country's economy and enable him to have built five million houses, not just the 2.7 million in two years sought by the President. Mr. Wyatt repeatedly assured the Senator during the colloquy that he did not intend any such result. But Senator Capehart continued to insist that he would have such power, even to the point of furnishing the houses by closing down the furniture factories. Mr. Wyatt responded that he could not then furnish furniture if the factories were closed down, to which Senator Capehart adamantly insisted that he could furnish the houses, but not furnish the furniture. Mr. Wyatt responded, "Oh." The piece suggests that the response was one worth remembering by the veteran who had become accustomed to giving that response often during the war. "The Disillusionment of Mrs. Poston" discusses the 16-year old British bride who, upon arrival in Salisbury, had taken a look around at the five-room farmhouse in which she was to live with her husband, along with his brother and sister, and decided to hightail it back north to New York City, where she was then found by the police. Her version of the farmhouse was that it was actually a one-room cabin. The Raleigh News & Observer thought she should be deported, but Ralph McGill of The Atlanta Constitution had sided with her right to take off under such circumstances, where she had expected roses and not only were they absent, but so, too, was the plumbing. She liked New York and had decided to remain in America. So, nothing had been badly hurt, save the pride of the husband. But he, at least, was spared a nagging British wife, who, it remarks, would be the worst type of nagger, for to be nagged in a British accent was unlike any other form of nagging. And Salisbury could take solace in the fact of her tender years and inability therefore properly to judge the merits of the town, especially within the space of 24 hours. As we said, he should have taken her downtown and bought her a couple of nice belts of Cheerwine, and all would have been forgotten. They would, undoubtedly, have lived happily ever after, as long as the Cheerwine supply remained in plenty. A piece from the Winston-Salem Journal, titled "Now That April's Here....." quotes from Robert Browning, "O to be in England, now that April's here!" by way of expressing the same sentiment regarding North Carolina in springtime. It provides a vivid description of the variegated landscape which comes about in Mrs. Poston did not apparently share the vision. Drew Pearson discusses the arrest of Russian Naval officer Nicolai Redin as an alleged spy seeking data on the U.S.S. Yellowstone. He reports that the FBI had an ironclad case against the lieutenant and had presented the evidence to President Truman before obtaining authorization to make the arrest. Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson approved the action, as did Attorney General Tom Clark. The evidence collected showed that Lt. Redin purchased the plans for the new destroyer tender from members of the crew who had already tipped the FBI of the initial contact so that surveillance could begin. The crew members gave him the plans, acting under instruction from the FBI, who then moved in and arrested him. But the Yellowstone was not an important ship and so it was baffling as to why the Russians would want its plans. The incident demonstrated that the Russians were attempting to obtain American military secrets. He next tells of an exchange between President Truman and Civil Aeronautics Administration vice-chairman Oswald Ryan, native of Indiana, in which, after Mr. Ryan extolled the virtues of his home state as seen from the air, Mr. Truman stated that he used the tried and true method learned in school for identifying the states from above. When Mr Ryan inquired of the method, the President informed him that Missouri was green and Indiana was pink. Atomic scientists were pleased that Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan had listened carefully to their testimony before the Atomic Energy Committee and modified considerably a strict amendment he had previously proposed which would have imposed criminal penalties on scientists who exchanged with other scientists atomic knowledge, even that of a non-military nature. Finally, he notes that an insidious practice of selling apartments to veterans needed to be regulated by housing czar Wilson Wyatt. Speculators were engaging in buying the apartments from owners and then selling them at high prices to veterans who were renters, or evicting them if they would not pay the price. Bertram Benedict reports that the House was so divided that any combination of Southern Democrats and Republicans were able to form a majority. It took a shift of only 26 Democrats to do so. The South had 117 Democratic Representatives. In the Senate, it took a shift of nine votes out of 23 Southern Democrats. But 20 had deserted the President the previous week during the vote on whether to include farm labor costs in farm parity prices, as opposed by the Administration. Influential Southern Senators had voted for the rider on farm parity to be attached to the minimum wage bill, despite that amendment assuring its veto by the President. The President could, however, count on Republican support on some measures, such as the tariff bill of 1945 and raising the excess profits tax. The House had formed a decisive majority in voting for the anti-labor Case bill, with 100 of 109 Southern Democrats who voted voting for it. Thirty-three Republicans, however, had voted against the measure. Some Republicans feared that forming a coalition with the Southern Democrats might backfire among voters, especially black voters, who they believed would be crucial to winning the House in November and the White House in 1948. The N.A.A.C.P. had demanded that the Republicans repudiate the coalition. So we understand now that it really was not up to Dick, when in 1968, he became the One. The Southern Strategy was foreordained 22 years earlier, by the same forces who had sought to control Senator Claghorn. Why, the only thing Dick wanted, after all, Son, was to be the son-in-law to Senator Claghorn and operate a frozen orange juice business, not be an undertaker all his life. Marquis Childs comments on the hearings before the Atomic Energy Committee, that it had been discovered that patents had been provided to individual corporations for certain aspects of atomic energy production. One contractor had a license which allowed granting of sub-licenses. Some of the Senators believed that these licenses provided an unfair advantage to some companies in the field of atomic energy production. The bill which had been approved by the committee revoked these licenses and disallowed any future licenses on technology useful solely for production of fissionable material or atomic energy for weaponry. It provided for patents for non-military uses, but under strict regulations. While there had been one application from France for a patent during the fall of 1939, it was still pending. The French had developed a process in that period through the work of Frederic Joliot-Curie, son-in-law of Madame Curie. Most observers believed that France would be able to produce atomic energy before any other foreign country. But: "The secrecy in a patent on atomic energy will be good only so long as we hold the exclusive know-how. That may not be very long." No matter how accurate this statement of Mr. Childs was, surely it attracted the rubefacient ire of the editors, who had the previous week taken considerable exception to the State Department report on atomic energy for its use of what it considered to be the bastardized "know-how" A regular letter writer, Mr. Taylor, provides an anti-brass poem, drafted by an anonymous G.I. in the Pacific a couple of years earlier, which he believes many former enlisted men would appreciate. The title: "Sic Transit Gloria Mundi or Take Elevator Here for Ground Floor and Basement". Sample: "Shed a tear for some poor Colonel,/ If he doesn't feel himself:/ Jerking sodas isn't easy,/ With his eagles on the shelf... "So be kind to working people/ That you meet, where e'er you go,/ For the guy that's washing dishes,/ May have been your old CO." Presumably, the brief response of the editors was indited by former Lt. Col. Harry Ashmore: "Worse still, you might find him/ Suffering that ultimate abuse/ Confined in an Ivory Tower/ Behind the signature." A letter responds to the letter of a week earlier which had suggested that Jesus was a wino, or something like that. This writer refuses to accept that Jesus wanted men to drink spirituous inebriants. Drunks beat their wives and children who uttered pitiful cries, and legalizing the sale of liquor would result in thousands turning to drink who might not otherwise. Recently, he says, a man got drunk and took offense at his best friend being too close to his wife, hit him so hard that it bursted his skull and took away his life. He knew a carpenter who drank wine and beat his wife and children, "run everyone of them from home." Then he lit a cigarette and, next morning, there were not even left any bones, "you could take up his remains in a half bushel." A wet had named the prohibitionists "boll weevils". But no one had heard from the wets, who were too glad to get your money. The editors respond: "Never mind the moral argument—just tell us more about that carpenter. Did he explode?" Well now, aren't you the smart one? You'll see when that serpent come up there and bite you upside the head, drunken fool good for nothing louse who don't know Jesus no how. That wino found out. Just a little half bushel An angry letter from Mt. Airy states: "You have only printed one issue of your paper that was worth a damn. That was Saturday, 4/6/46 about Mr. Reece, the new chairman of a truthful, decent Party. I hope the OPA and New Deal busts hell out of the country so you yellow Democrats can learn something." The editors respond: "How about the issue of Nov. 3, 1928, reporting the election of President Hoover?" Actually, the issue would have been, unless referring to some fine example of News augury, that of November 7, 1928. He was the 31st President, at least by the way we count them now. By the Olde Count Framed Edition
Links-Date -- Links-Subj.