The Charlotte News

Friday, October 3, 1947

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the Foreign Minister of the Ukraine charged that the U.S. was trying to create a smokescreen in Greece by bringing up the alleged aid to the northern guerrillas from Yugoslavia, Albania, and Bulgaria, and that the U.S. was the primary offender causing all the trouble in the Balkans.

In Palestine, approximately 1.5 million Arabs closed their shops and left work in a general strike throughout the country, presumably in protest of the partition plan. Two ships, carrying about 3,500 Jewish refugees, had been seized by the British at Haifa, as the passengers sought to immigrate.

At the U.N., Jewish Agency representatives told a special committee on Palestine that it would reluctantly and sadly accept partition of Palestine if it was the only means by which a Jewish homeland could be established. The Arabs had told the same committee earlier in the week that partition was unacceptable as a resolution.

Big Four representatives met in Paris to try to resolve the disposition of the ceded Italian colonies in North Africa, Cyrenaica, Tripolitania, Eritrea, and Italian Somaliland. By the terms of the Italian treaty, the Big Four had until September 15, 1948 to resolve the issue, before it would be turned over to the U.N. Oil and the U.S.-Russia schism were expected to be central problems in resolving the disposition.

Ethiopia was made independent and the Dodecanese Islands were provided Greece under the treaty.

The Army, after an investigation, issued a report in response to the Robert Ruark expose of Lt. General John C. H. Lee, accused by G.I.’s and their parents of living extravagantly while the enlisted men suffered privation and severe discipline. The report found only minor irregularities in the General’s conduct while commanding the occupation zone in Italy. The report was approved by General Eisenhower and Secretary of the Army Kenneth Royall. It accused Mr. Ruark, a journalist, of basing his articles on half-facts and rumors which he took to be true.

Among the minor deviations found by the report were that officers made chauffeurs wait unduly long hours at social events, officers placed undue pressure on subordinates to join fraternal organizations, prisoners who were minor offenders were locked up with major criminals, prisoners were given an active day of 17 hours, and there were unsatisfactory conditions in the disciplinary camp. General Eisenhower stated, however, that the errors were the exception rather than the rule.

At Etowah, Tenn., a political figure and the former McMinn County Sheriff, T.B. Ivins, was killed and his six-year old grandson injured, albeit not seriously, when the automobile in which they were sitting blew up as Mr. Ivins sought to start it. Mr. Ivins had been tried several months earlier for the murder of a member of a well-known family of Etowah, but the case had ended in a mistrial. Athens, in McMinn County, had been the scene of the G.I. revolt of August, 1946, in which a slate of non-partisan G.I.’s overthrew the long-entrenched Democratic machine in the county after securing the ballot boxes by force to prevent stuffing by the machine, of which Mr. Ivins had been a part.  

Sometimes, them cars ‘ll just blow up like ‘at.

In Great Falls, Mont., a 65-year old sheepherder was near death after doing battle the previous night with a giant grizzly bear which began devouring his flock. There was scant hope for his recovery. He had fired at the grizzly but missed. He managed to crawl one and a half miles to a ranch before losing consciousness.

The two black men, Jethro Lampkins and Richard McCain, convicted of the January stabbing murder of Frank McClure, a 60-year old coal dealer in Charlotte, were executed at Central Prison, as part of the first five-person execution in one day in the state’s history. Also executed were Robert Messer and Earl O’Dear, convicted in Jackson County of killing a taxi driver and his wife in a robbery. Willie Cherry of Rich Square, also of Jackson County, was the fifth, convicted of breaking into a home and attacking a white woman. Three of the men were black.

Mr. O’Dear had jammed the lock on his cell with an ice cream spoon, but it was opened quickly by prison officials. The condemned man said that he was sorry that he had done it. He left a written statement saying that his conscience was clear for the crime of which he was convicted, committed by someone else. He also said that he would not be where he was had he been clear in his mind. He thanked prison officials for their kindness.

A sixth execution, of Ralph Letteral, was scheduled for the date, but Governor Gregg Cherry intervened to grant a reprieve, the inmate’s second. He had been convicted, along with another defendant, in the rape of a teenage girl. The reprieve was based on the case of the co-defendant, Marvin Bell, still pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Mr. Letteral and Mr. Bell, both white, would be executed on November 14, after the Supreme Court declined review of Mr. Bell's case.

During 1947, 23 men would be executed in North Carolina, the most by the State in any single year, dating to 1910 when the State first took over executions from the counties, exceeding those of 1934 by two executions. Thirteen had been executed in 1946, about the average per year for the war years between 1941 and 1945, inclusive.

The Charlotte Planning Board endorsed the plan for a 2.5 million dollar bond to build a new auditorium in the city.

A story which had been published in The News the previous day, anent a depressed family in Mint Hill, had caused the Mecklenburg Welfare Department, headed by Wallace Kuralt—father of Charles Kuralt—, to be swamped with contributions of articles of all kinds for the family. Mr. Kuralt had stayed up past midnight answering inquiries from the public and making arrangements to receive supplies for the family. The office of the newspaper also was swamped with offers of articles.

The man of the family had been planning to purchase a farm when he fell from a haystack and broke his neck a couple of months earlier. His wife and five children carried on, picking cotton for which they received $400. Then the house caught fire and burned up the money and all of the family’s belongings. Then the family mule died. The family had never been on charity or asked for help. Neighbors pitched in and began building a temporary home for the family, and one neighbor provided two rooms in which they could live in the meantime.

At least, the family car did not explode.

Secretary of the Army Kenneth Royall visited Charlotte to speak to the Southern Combed Yarn Spinners Association, refused to commit as to whether he would run for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1948, as widely reported.

Whether any good combed yarns got spun at the meeting is not woven.

Schoolboys at Dartford, Kent, England, were discovered to be taking an unusual interest in an office equipment display, and it was discovered that they were utilizing an adding machine to do their homework.

At Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, the Yankees had an early lead on the Brooklyn Dodgers. Starting pitcher for the Dodgers, Harry Taylor, was sent to the showers early and was replaced by Hal Gregg. Bill Bevens pitched for the Yankees. Brooklyn would go on to win the game, 3 to 2, to even up the Series at two wins apiece.

Burke Davis, on page 4-A, continues his look at the new and "amazing" Bob Jones University in Greenville, S.C. You won’t want to miss it.

On the editorial page, “Let’s Remember Jimison” recalls the series of articles by the late Tom Jimison, told from the perspective of a patient, regarding the terrible conditions at the State Mental Hospital at Morganton, a series which had appeared in The News and other newspapers in the state in January and February of 1942—not 1940 as the piece mistakenly suggests. It had been the beginning of progress on the mental facilities in the state. A start had been made in the interim in providing the 9,000 patients in the system a level of decent care. It had led to the opportunity given the state at Camp Butner, a facility provided the State by the Federal Government.

The Hospitals Board still disapproved of the approach, giving a plain statement of the problems such that average readers could understand it. But it thinks that it would be good public relations for the Board to provide lasting recognition to Mr. Jimison for his contribution. It could be done by placing his name on the new building planned for Dix Hospital or that at Morganton or at Camp Butner. Mr. Jimison’s widow was going to operate a colony for the feeble-minded at Butner and perhaps, it suggests, that would be the most appropriate place to keep his memory alive.

Well, we don’t know whether they did or not, but it appears doubtful. When we search for Mr. Jimison online, the only entries we find are the articles he wrote which appear at this website—which, in itself, is somewhat unique, as, usually, the morons at Wicked-pedia manage to get their moronic entries first and foremost on all the search engines regarding just about everything, clogging the exchange of knowledge with their superimposition of their obscurantist dogma and political agenda which they regularly promote, cloaked under a pretense of objectivity, accuracy, and gravity, reliant most of the time on third-rate sources, often misrepresented even as to what those say.

But, of course, Tom Jimison, has no entry there. Perhaps by omission, that, in itself, is a triumph to his memory.

We caution again against any student relying on Wicked-pedia for anything outside basic names, dates, and rudimentary information on a given subject, and even those ought be double-checked unless one is already familiar enough with the subject. And more often than not, that basic information winds up buried in a morass of useless, irrelevant details and factoids, more apropos to a treatise on a given subject than any encyclopedia entry ever created by competent, sensible personnel. The level of "scholarship" is typically, at best, the equivalent of "C" work in college, and more often in the realm of the "D", either perfunctory to a fault on subjects deserving far more, but "boring", or overborne by minutia, kitsch, and pet theorizing run amok on the "sexy" topics. To call it a moronic device, given more to obscurantism than sharing of basic knowledge and information in typical encyclopedic fashion, is to do it a service.

“Bravely Now, the New World” finds the times of high production and profit remarkable for the doomsayers among the nation’s prophets. The only thing heard was how people must tend to their own miseries.

Robert Taft became the first exponent of this new philosophy, advising Americans to eat less to “whip the inflation” now, the inflation he had a year earlier preached would not come with the end of price controls.

President Truman echoed the philosophy by urging Americans to eat less bread, that Europeans would not suffer hunger during the winter.

Then came the Population Reference Bureau which chided Europe for its over-population, causing it to be unable to support itself.

Thus were the prophecies of doom in the land of plenty in a plentiful time, the most plentiful in the country’s history. Yet, no one laughed at these prophets, though they had without shame when Henry Wallace, as Secretary of Agriculture in 1934, had slaughtered pigs because of high prices and a resulting corn scarcity.

“Midwood Shows Us How” tells of a section of Charlotte which had raised $6,000 privately to build a park for themselves. It afforded the ability to purchase a 6.5-acre tract. Four hundred people had contributed. Campaign expenses were about $25.

The piece recommends the effort as a beacon to other neighborhoods in the city, rather than waiting for the City of Charlotte to build recreational facilities.

Ask not what your city can do for you…

A piece from the Richmond Times-Dispatch, titled, “Social Security, Russian Style”, tells of the Soviet cradle-to-the-grave security plan for coal miners, the cost of which was to be borne, it instructs, by the Russian taxpayer in the form of exorbitant taxes.

The piece concludes that it was not the business of America to be concerned with what went on behind the “iron curtain”, except in terms of setting a pattern for what American Communists proposed as a social security plan.

Drew Pearson says that despite warnings from the President’s advisers and Secretary of State Marshall during the summer, that without emergency aid to Italy, it would face a potential Communist takeover by spring, the President did not call a special session and went out of his way to deny reports that it would be necessary. Instead, the President took the slow-boat home from the Rio de Janeiro Inter-American Treaty Conference. Mr. Pearson tells what transpired at the meeting with Congressional leaders after his return.

Generally, the leaders were opposed to a special session if it could possibly be avoided but also recognized that some form of emergency aid would be necessary for Italy and France to avoid calamity during the winter. Senator Arthur Vandenberg objected, however, that the President was giving the leaders “five minutes” to voice an opinion on what ought be done, when the White House had considered the matter for five weeks. Former House Speaker Sam Rayburn warned that other legislation could be brought up during a special session, such as a new tax bill from House & Ways Means Committee chairman Harold Knutson of Minnesota. Congressman Sol Bloom of New York believed that the emergency was necessary to prime the pump for the Marshall Plan or the latter would be of no use. Senator Scott Lucas of Indiana warned that calling a special session too early could be counter-productive as conservative, isolationist members would make speeches that they would never support aid to Europe.

By waiting to inform Congress as he had, the President may have made a grave historical mistake which only time would inform through the conditions in Europe during the winter and whether any aid provided would work to stave off the threat of Communist revolutions.

Marquis Childs, in Rome, tells of the recent strikes in Italy pointing to a Communist revolution. Yet, the predictions appeared premature, as the Communist Party leaders in the country repeatedly indicated their lack of intention of resorting to violence. They stated instead their intent to win the spring elections. But given the ordinary Communist tactics, it suggested a takeover by force. Yet, Palmiro Togliatti, the Communist Party leader, knew how to read tea leaves and to exploit them. All indications pointed to a rough winter ahead for Italians for lack of dollars with which to buy wheat and coal. It would mean a reversal of the remarkable industrial recovery in the country. The likelihood was that any interim emergency aid would be too little too late. The Government could not even properly pay its cable bills.

Hunger, unheated houses, the increase of the two million already unemployed, and industrial slowdowns would all characterize the winter months, conditions lending to Communist exploitation. They would blame the de Gasperi Government, and the U.S. for failing to provide adequate aid. Then in March, the Russians would likely make an offer of wheat to Italy, to act as their ace in the hole for the May election. The Russians would likely have surplus wheat as the drought impacting most of Europe had not reached Russia.

So, there was good reason for the Communists not to resort to force under such conditions. Indeed, the rightwing would welcome such a showdown with the left, even if it meant civil war. The aim was to put second or third rate Communists in the Cabinet and then criticize the Government from afar, to prepare the way for the next step.

Stewart Alsop tells of the meeting between the President and Congressional leaders having produced a rough timetable for action on emergency aid for Western Europe. The foreign relations committees of each house would meet beginning in early November and complete hearings within three to four weeks. And the appropriations committees of each house meanwhile would be working to complete their reports prior to November 1. A special session would then be called on December 1 and the President then wanted the matter completed by Christmas or the New Year at the latest. The President was taking a calculated risk that such a timetable would not cause the Congress to balk and dispose of the whole foreign aid program, as it might if a special session were called too early.

But the reality was that even on this risky timetable, as the President, himself, and his advisers had acknowledged, it might already be too late to avert disaster. And the Congress would be asked not just to advance the emergency aid but also another 246 million dollars for Britain to underwrite its occupation costs in Germany, and another 300 million for American occupation costs, all from an economy-minded Congress. And the election would be less than a year away.

One Congressional leader stated that he thought it would take a miracle.

A letter writer adds to the Charlotte historical places of which an editorial had made mention on September 25. The list is there, two columns of it, too long to summarize or even abstract at any length. As an example, she cites a marker to Confederate General D. H. Hill, who lived in the city for many years, and who edited and published The Southern Home and The Land We Love.

If you are in Charlotte or planning a trip soon, you can peruse it for your edification.

We would add, of at least equal interest, Charlotte's literary landmarks, such as the house where Carson McCullers wrote, where Harry Golden printed the Carolina Israelite and indited his humoresques, and, of course, the Frederick Apartments, now condominiums, where W. J. Cash lived between latter 1937 and the end of 1940, during which time he completed the last third of The Mind of the South.

Framed Edition
[Return to Links
Page by Subject] [Return to Links-Page by Date] [Return to News<i><i><i>--</i></i></i>Framed Edition]
Links-Date -- Links-Subj.