The Charlotte News

Saturday, October 4, 1947

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the U.S. indicated willingness to explore the proposal offered by France to the U.N. General Assembly that Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Albania not be named as aggressors in Greece, aiding the rebel forces in the north, provided the three countries would then assent to establishment of a Balkans commission to investigate and report on the issues in the region.

The Soviet proposal to have the U.N. officially condemn warmongers and Fascists and to label the U.S. as participating in warmongering was vigorously opposed by U.N. delegate Eleanor Roosevelt before the social committee of the General Assembly the previous evening, on the ground that such a proposal would violate the American conception of free speech and criticism.

At Cardiff, Sir Stafford Cripps, Minister of Economic Affairs, found Mr. Churchill's continuing speeches against the Labor Government to provide incentive to keep it in power. He continued to favor reduction of imports, especially tobacco, to preserve dollars, saying that even that would not necessarily provide the needed dollar balance.

Speaking in Brighton, Opposition Leader Winston Churchill called for an early election, which he predicted would end the Labor Government, contending it had compounded its errors by grabbing more power to try to correct earlier miscues, moving close to a totalitarian state. A new House of Commons, he said, was the only way the economic crisis would be resolved. He also contended that the Government no longer had majority support in the country. In July, 1945, the Labor Party, led by Clement Attlee, had supplanted the wartime Coalition Government of Mr. Churchill, in the first elections in Britain in ten years.

Pursuant to the Potsdam agreement, that all foreign troops would evacuate within 90 days former enemy countries after treaties were finalized, the American occupation troops would begin departing Italy, to complete the process by December 2. The treaty had been finalized with Italy on September 15.

Secretary of Agriculture Clinton Anderson announced, after a meeting with brewing company officials, that the industry might be willing to reduce its use of grains so that Europe could have more bread.

In Etowah, Tenn., where the former Sheriff, T. B. Ivins, had been killed the previous day when his automobile exploded as he tried to start it, there were, according to police, as yet no suspects. Mr. Ivins had been a principal in the longstanding political machine which had been ousted in August, 1946 by a non-partisan slate of G.I.’s who commandeered the ballot boxes by force to prevent stuffing. Mr. Ivins had recently been tried for murder of a member of a prominent family in the community and a hung jury had resulted. His retrial was to begin the following Monday. The Police Chief said that the killing appeared to have no political motive, that the former Sheriff made a lot of enemies while in office. He had killed “seven or eight men, most of them as Sheriff.”

In Billerica, Mass, two men were held for questioning in the strangulation murder of a 23-year old woman, bride of a veteran from the Aleutians. She had been sexually assaulted. Her body was found by her husband and her brother in the basement of an overnight cabin which had been converted to a dwelling. She apparently had been ambushed in a wooded area near her home.

In Santa Ana, Calif., the jury continued deliberations in the case of Louise Overell and George Gollum, accused of killing her parents for inheritance by first hitting the parents over the head with a ball peen hammer and then blowing up their yacht on which their bodies were found March 15. The trial had lasted 74 court days, having begun May 26.

In New York, the wife of Conrad Hilton, Sari Gabor Hilton, one of the Gabor sisters, was robbed while in her 83rd Street apartment, the thief making off with $750,000 worth of jewels. Ms. Hilton had been tied up during the course of the robbery, which occurred in the morning hours. Her maid was also tied up. The robber, who sought and was initially refused entry by claiming to the maid that he was there to do some wiring, then pulled a gun and forced his way into the apartment, striking the maid at one point and threatening to kill Ms. Gabor’s baby. He was described as six feet tall, wearing a gray suit and dark glasses. If you see him, call the police.

Students at High Point College in High Point, N.C., protested the release of the vice-president of the College, Dr. N. M. Harrison, whom they described as an “inspiration”. The students held a mock funeral.

In London, stockbrokers at the London Stock Exchange audibly gasped when one of their number appeared on the floor in a plum-coloured suit. They whipped off his attire, save for his pants—at least, we assume. The standard garb was silk hats and striped trousers. Once, a clerk had been sent home for wearing brown shoes. Whether barefoot, was not imparted.

Tom Lynch of The News reports that Congressman Hamilton C. Jones promised a prompt investigation into delays in airmail, uncovered by a News investigation, showing that North Carolina and other South Atlantic states were receiving airmail no faster, and sometimes slower, than regular first class mail. Airmail cost a nickel compared to three cents for regular mail. The distribution process appeared to be at fault.

At Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, before a sellout crowd of 34,000, the fifth game of the World Series was scoreless after three innings. Rex Barney was selected from the bullpen rotation to be the starting pitcher for the Dodgers, while Frank Shea took the mound for the Yankees in his second start of the Series, having won the first game. The Yankees would go on to win the game 2 to 1, to take a three to two game lead in the Series.

Furman Bisher was at the games, covering them for The News on the sports page.

In Los Angeles, singer Dennis Day sought to have his original name, Owen Patrick McNulty, restored. He had legalized the change to his stage name when he joined the Navy in 1944. But he had been persuaded by Irish kin to revert to his birth name.

On the editorial page, "Gratitude, in Chocolate" tells of cocoa beans now costing 49 cents per pound, whereas before the war they were a nickel. Candy makers were spreading chocolate on their bars wafer thin as a result.

British West Africa and Brazil produced 75 percent of the world’s cocoa beans. During the war, the British nationalized the cocoa supply and began raising the price, primarily aimed at the chocolate-craving American market.

The nickel candy bar appeared doomed. But the American buyers had not yet bitten into the high-priced chocolate and might be able to hold out long enough to bring prices down.

The piece recalls the finesse of Britain after World War I in milking the American market for crude rubber produced in its colonies.

It concludes that it appeared as a form of reverse lend-lease.

"The Job Is Still Tough" thanks the outgoing members of the Parks & Recreation Commission of the City and wishes well the new members, who would continue to face a hard row to hoe with the City Council.

"South Carolina Hangover" tells of South Carolina’s liquor stores facing the double-barreled problem of newly sanctioned ABC liquor in counties of North Carolina, as Mecklenburg, and a determined effort of the dry forces to try to obtain local option.

"Now You See It, Now…" finds the Administration's foreign policy heading down a “tortuous, winding trail of expediency,” as exampled by the erratic byplay at the U.N. during the week, whereby the U.S. recognized Bulgaria diplomatically while successfully preventing it from being admitted to the U.N. for its Communist-dominated Government.

The editorial finds the foreign policy without a clear map, appearing to vary on an ad hoc basis, as with the aid to Greece.

A piece from the New York Times, titled "October Lights the Fires", follows an annual tradition at the Times of welcoming the new season poetically, in the vein of Thomas Wolfe:

"The birds are on the wing, the leaves are footloose and eager for a breeze, the horizon is a challenge that amounts to an insidious summons. Listen closely and you can hear October, that fellow in the crimson shirt, whistling a soft melody that is as old as Autumn upon this earth."

Drew Pearson tells of the Justice Department having had thrust upon it the question of whether two top Wall Street firms—Dillon, Read, which had supplied several Administration officials, including Secretary of Defense James Forrestal, and Harriman, Ripley, likewise the source of Administration officials, including Secretary of Commerce Averell Harriman, a founding partner, and Undersecretary of State Robert Lovett—had violated anti-trust laws by the sale of 25 million dollars worth of preferred stock issued by the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co.—nothing to do with the Illuminati. The partnerships had conducted their transactions in secret, effectively freezing out competition, keeping utility rates for the public high as a result.

For several months, a Grand Jury had been investigating the two firms. Wendell Berge, former head of the Anti-Trust Division of the Justice Department, had been ready to prosecute when he resigned, and six months had since elapsed without an indictment. The Division was now headed by John Sonnett, former aide to Mr. Forrestal.

An ex-G.I. from San Diego was conducting a campaign to send parcels to Europe to families who had been friendly to G.I.’s during the war, to make it more difficult to wage war by maintaining those ties. Another G.I. was determined to provide the children of dead G.I.’s with as good an education as received by those whose fathers had survived the war.

The Boatrailer Co. of Detroit had reduced its prices by five percent, relying on volume to make up the difference in profits.

Abbott and Costello operated a youth center to help delinquents improve their lives.

Eastern Republicans were unhappy with the anti-black move by the Mayor of Topeka, Kansas, Frank Warren, the so-called "Topeka incident". Former Governor and former Secretary of War Harry Woodring had sided with the black law student, Philip Burton, who challenged City officials in the matter. His mother had worked as a maid for the Woodring family. Former Governor Alf Landon, 1936 presidential candidate, was silent on the issue.

It would be the Topeka School District which would be the lead defendant in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.

Speaker Joe Martin had consulted with Mr. Landon, the latter, according to rumors, seeking the support of the Speaker for General Eisenhower as the party nominee, in exchange for which Mr. Landon would support Mr. Martin as the vice-presidential nominee, or even for the top spot on the ticket should the Eisenhower bandwagon fade. Mr. Landon wanted to be Secretary of State in the next Republican Administration.

Marquis Childs, in Rome, discusses the Communist Party in Italy, with perhaps four million members, the largest contingent in Western Europe, astonishing for a nation so heavily Roman Catholic. The party was led by Palmiro Togliatti, who received his training in Moscow. Giuseppe di Vittori, head of the General Federation of Labor, was second in command.

Mr. Childs was able to interview Signor Di Vittori, Signor Togliatti refusing to speak with Western journalists. Signor Di Vittori had been a political commissar in the International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War. According to him, 58 percent of his Federation were Communists, with total membership at 6.7 million. Another 20 percent were Socialists. Twelve percent were Christian Democrats. He also claimed that the agricultural workers in the north were slaves before they were organized. He insisted that he supported legal, non-violent methods and was a humanitarian. But he said that force would be used to repel any attempt to put back in power the Fascists. He believed that the Catholic Church need not be an obstacle to progress, that the heads of the Church could side with labor in accordance with Christian principles.

He had been in jail, in exile, through four years of war in Spain and fought with the partisans against the Nazis, in probable consequence of which having a fanatical devotion to his credo. He stood as an example of those who would reshape Europe in the image of Communism.

Stewart Alsop remarks on the attacks by the Weekly Literary Gazette, Communist publication, on American leaders, including the President, comparing him to Hitler, and Secretary of State Marshall, termed a "Shylock" taking his "pound of flesh" in exchange for aid to European nations. It appeared that the harsh statements were inspired by Premier Stalin, the men who produced the magazine having been informed in recent months that Stalin was displeased with the quality of the publication, wishing a more anti-Western cast to its content. Given that a purge of writers not adequately adherent to the Party line was ongoing in Russia, the magazine complied.

The shift reflected the Politburo determination to alter Soviet policy, away from any attempt to cooperate with the West, especially the U.S. The Communist Party was stressing legal, non-violent winning of mass support, undermining the Social Democrats of Europe. They now were promoting the "April Theses" of Lenin, indited at the time of the Revolution in 1917.

The charges before the U.N. by Andrei Vishinsky, that several prominent Americans were warmongers, was another part of the campaign which the Gazette was promoting. It foreshadowed the new Soviet line in France and Italy. The great bid for Communist power in Western Europe would take place during the winter, when the people would be undergoing the greatest hardship. Its success depended more on what the United States would do in terms of providing emergency aid than it did on Josef Stalin and the strategists at the Kremlin.

A letter from the chairman of the Evangelism Committee of the Charlotte Christian Council tells of the following day to be marked in many Charlotte churches as Loyalty Sunday. It had been endorsed by the Council. The goals were increased devotion to Christ, to symbolize Christian fellowship, to have a hundred percent attendance in every church, and to strengthen observance of Worldwide Communion Sunday.

Parenthetically, we presume that the symbology referenced would be non-idolatrous in nature, more, thus, Pantheistic, perhaps.

A letter writer criticizes Henry Wallace for what she perceives as bad-mouthing of the United States. Conditions in the U.S., she offers, were far better than in Russia, though often people believed the reverse. In Russia, one could not listen to any radio program one wished or call a meeting to discuss anything one wanted.

Josef Stalin never went to the fish market, she says, in rags to buy rotten fish he had to wrap in paper off the street.

She wants more Patrick Henrys and fewer Henry Wallaces, wants Mr. Wallace to go to Russia.

A letter writer did not object to Admiral William Halsey doing a little nipping, even if it appeared more as guzzling. He could even forgive the "stupid and irresponsible" remark of the Admiral that he did not trust a fighting man who did not drink or smoke. But his blood boiled when he read in a News editorial on the subject the inference that Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee, who did not imbibe, were poor fighters. He thinks it par for the course for a newspaper with a Midwestern Editor and a Yankee Publisher.

The editors note that their editorial actually had said the opposite, that drinking or not did not determine the fighting prowess of a soldier.

A letter writer compliments a correspondent on September 30 who put P. C. Burkholder in his place. This writer wants The News to stop carrying the failed Republican Congressional nominee’s diatribes against the New Deal.

But without people who say things which are completely outrageous, we have no one against whom to inveigh to try to set the record straight. So, Mr. Burkholder affords a public service in his ramblings through the outhouse.

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