The Charlotte News

Wednesday, October 8, 1947

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the debate of the U.N. General Assembly's political committee regarding the Balkans had reached a point closer to showdown between the positions adopted by the U.S. and Russia, and compromise between the two stands appeared vanished. The issue was joined: whether to support the American position to declare Yugoslavia, Albania, and Bulgaria aggressor nations aiding the guerrillas of northern Greece and establish a border-watch commission to report to the Security Council, or to support Russia's demand that foreign troops be withdrawn from Greece and that a U.N. commission be established to insure that economic aid was distributed in the interests of the Greek people. After the committee had acted on the proposals, the Assembly would vote, a two-thirds majority required for passage.

The first order of business would be the French amendment, supported by the U.S., to remove the declaration of aggression, provided the three bordering nations agreed to the border-watch commission. But it had been rejected by Russia and Yugoslavia and so appeared destined to fail.

Boris Kandidov, writing in the Weekly Literary Gazette, Communist publication, accused Pope Pius XII of openly calling for war with the Soviets. He also criticized the alliance made by the President with the Pope—meaning, per the letter on the editorial page and other such correspondence of late, that the Baptists sided with the Communists on this issue. HUAC better get busy, for when the Reds have the Baptists by their hearts and minds, the rest of the country will undoubtedly soon follow the ball bearings.

The President, in a nationwide radio broadcast commemorating Democratic Women's Day, urged women to make a major contribution to the food savings program to feed Europe during the winter.

Leaders of three major farm organizations pledged support of the President's food conservation plan. They agreed to conserve grain by feeding more roughage to livestock, marketing hogs at a lighter weight, closer culling of non-productive dairy herds and poultry flocks, and elimination of feed grain losses.

At Hartford, Conn., former Vice-President Henry Wallace stated that an Eisenhower-Stassen Republican ticket would win overwhelmingly in 1948, and that General Eisenhower would win if he ran as the Democratic nominee, while hastening to add that he expected the President to be nominated. He said that he would support the party of peace in 1948, even if it took the form of a third party.

The Department of Agriculture predicted an annual cotton crop of 341,000 bales less than that predicted a month earlier, still 2.7 million bales above 1946, about 800,000 less than the ten-year average.

In London, Sir Stafford Cripps, having recently been appointed the new Minister for Economic Affairs, said that unless new dollar aid were forthcoming from the United States for Britain and Europe to afford trade, Britain would have to undertake further curtailment of imports in the near future, beginning probably with food and tobacco, spreading to raw materials, having an effect adversely redounding to the rest of Europe. He advocated release of the 400 million dollars remaining on the 3.75 billion dollar loan from the U.S., frozen for the British policy of ending dollar exchange for Sterling, a Congressionally imposed condition of the original loan, the exchange termination in turn preventing trade by Italy which had few dollars but ample reserve of Sterling. Britain had recently sold 80 million dollars worth of gold to the U.S., a criticial part of its gold reserve.

Mr. Cripps, incidentally, had originally, in 1942, set forth a plan for independence of India and successfully bartered the idea for critical cooperation of India's fighting forces in the war against Japan.

The hapless 17-year old who had sought to rob a bank in Peachland, N.C., and wound up accidentally shooting his accomplice who had the loot, $13.94, and then gave himself up after being pursued into the woods following a flat tire, was sentenced in Federal Court to fifteen years in prison following his plea of guilty. The defendant had no attorney and Judge Yates Webb asked Mecklenburg Domestic Relations Judge Marion Redd to act as his attorney. Judge Redd said that the youth had not been drinking at the time of the robbery. In deference to the defendant's youth, Judge Webb did not impose the full sentence of 25 years allowed by law. The defendant was polite and answered "yes sir" to all the Court's questions. The co-defendant was still recovering from his wounds and would not come to trial until the spring.

In York, S.C., the Sheriff said that yeggmen, believed experts in the safe crack, had broken into the Central Mill office and absconded with about $100, some change and stamps, most of the money belonging to an employees' fund to relieve the sick with flowers and for other benevolent purposes. It was a "spindle job", which, according to the officers, only experts in the crack could accomplish.

Dick Young of The News reports on the special 2.5 million dollar bond election scheduled for October 28 for building a new auditorium in Charlotte.

In Havana, Cuba, a woman, Toledo dancehall girl, on trial for murder on April 8 of a Chicago lawyer, Mr. Mee, aboard his yacht, Satira, apparently taking the name from her stage name or vice versa, told the Audiencia Court that she did so in self-defense after he said that he would kill her. When she tried to effect escape, he knocked her to the deck, kicked and hit her, told her to take her clothes, but not her dancing costume, and go ashore. He would sell her dancing outfit. He then said that he had changed his mind, would kill her as she knew too much about him, started toward her, reaching for something, at which point she plugged him in the neck with a pistol she happened to see in a nearby open drawer when he started to get up from the bunk. She did not know where or how the pistol discharged, but she fired it as he started toward her.

Judge Cristobol More ordered the pistol produced into evidence.

The witness, clad in black, having wept during reading of the charges, continued to explain under cross-examination by the prosecutor, Jose, that she had met Mr. Mee in Havana and that they also had their first dispute in the city.

The trial was recessed until October 14, apparently for extended siesta, to afford plentiful meditation on the domestic crisis and wherefore it was caused. She faced up to 30 years in prison, unless, that is, former President and Strongman Jimenez might intervene and grant her especial perdona para mala periodista y muy excellente funcion en traje.

A pilot who was about to embark on an attempted round-the-world flight had visited Charlotte during the weekend and left aboard his specially equipped Piper aircraft for New York. After disappearing for a bit, in delay of his expected Sunday arrival, he was being held in Glen Falls, N.Y., by the police without charge, pending appearance of the owner of the plane, based on disputed ownership. The flight was to take 220 hours and involve refueling in the air. Wish him luck.

Thursday: No eggs and poultry, to help feed the starving of the world.

On the editorial page, "$20,000 Cast Upon the Waters" tells of the amount being spent by the City and County Governments for a survey to be conducted by the Institute of Government in Chapel Hill to determine inefficiency and overlap of services between Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. The survey, it suggests, could save millions of dollars in expenditures and might or might not lead to consolidation.

"Royall's Hint to His Friends" finds the prospect of Secretary of the Army Kenneth Royall running for the gubernatorial nomination in the state to be a good thing and suggests that those who favored his candidacy work toward it as he could not do so from his current position in Washington. He had recently stated that the likelihood of his running was less than it had been a couple of months earlier.

In the end, he would not run.

"The Loss of a Leader" eulogizes Dr. James E. Shepard, president and founder of the North Carolina College for Negroes at Durham, now N.C. Central University. Dr. Shepard had died on October 6 at age 71. He had been largely responsible for amicable race relations in the state through the years. He had championed higher education for blacks as a means of improvement of socio-economic status in the community.

He had received his Ph.D. in 1894 and had since worked tirelessly, along with many other black leaders of like mind, toward improving race relations in North Carolina.

A piece from the Louisville Courier, titled "An English Nightmare", discusses Sir Oswald Mosley's return to the East End of London in Dalston to continue his Fascist speeches, with his promotion of the corporate state to replace the parliamentary system. He gathered about 20,000 supporters, insignificant in raw numbers but also notable given the British experience in wartime with the Fascists. Want spawned discontent. The British difficulties in Palestine were also rekindling anti-Semitism.

America had its Klan and Columbians and so could not speak ill of Britain because of its few or for its refusal to interfere with his right of free expression.

The Mosley movement gave fuel to Communist propaganda, that Britain was engaged in promoting Fascism. It was symptomatic of there being no middle ground between Communism and feudal capitalism of the type common in the robber-baron days of the latter nineteenth century. The situation placed new responsibility on the nations which would preserve "the middle way".

Drew Pearson tells of the meeting between the President, Secretary of Agriculture Clinton Anderson and the alcohol distillers, in which the President and Mr. Anderson sought to convince them to declare a moratorium on use of grains for 60 days. They argued that, despite their reserves, many companies would have to shut down. When it was rejoined that with current production high, the major distillers were headed for a price war and so such a moratorium would have beneficial effects, and that in any event they could use potatoes in the interim, the distillers countered that potatoes yield alcohol at a 1:25 ratio to grain and thus was inefficient. They finally agreed to abandon the use of wheat and to cut usage of corn by half.

Former California Attorney General Robert Kenny, who led the pro-Wallace contingent of the Democrats, found the President to be on parole from any captivity by the left, as charged by Republicans.

The Russians had made a deal the previous week at the U.N. whereby Argentina would steer 12 Latin American votes in support of having the Ukraine as a member of the Security Council in exchange for Russia's support of Argentina as a member of the Council. The U.S. and Britain gave support to India in contest with the Ukraine for the third seat. The result was the unresolved nine ballot deadlock, led in the end by the Ukraine but without the required two-thirds majority of the Assembly members.

It was rumored that Foreign Commissar V. M. Molotov would come to the U.N. later in the month with a new plan for mutual disarmament, and then would proceed to the London Foreign Ministers Conference, set to start November 25, with a new plan for reunification of Germany.

Secretary of Commerce Averell Harriman and chief of staff of the Air Force, General Carl Spaatz, were stressing before the Congressional Joint Committee on Air that air superiority would be needed to convey strength to the Russians and that a strong air industry and commercial airline system was necessary to maintain that power.

The Daily Worker had criticized Andrei Vishinsky's tirade against the "warmongering" U.S., calling it "boring" and "dull".

A Chicago sportsman, Col. John Bottlieb, had lost $300,000 in movie producer Mike Todd's bankruptcy.

Samuel Grafton discusses the new Communist manifesto issued in Eastern Europe by the nine Soviet-bloc nations, vowing a fight against American and British imperialism, finds it vacuous and artificial. It contended that America had fought the war against the Japanese and Germans to eliminate world trade competition. But if that were so, it would make no sense that the Marshall Plan sought to rebuild Germany. Furthermore, American capitalism had a minor interest in world trade and its exponents were predominantly content with high tariffs. Moreover, the concept begged the question why America did not go to war against Russia. Nor was it explained why much of American industry opposed the Marshall Plan if its intent was imperialism.

The document gave the feeling that European Communism was at the end of a road and did not know what to do or say next.

Marquis Childs, in Rome, tells of the progress made in Italy in the previous two years, nearly matching pre-war industrial and agricultural output. But now that was threatened unless immediate American aid could provide the means to have coal and wheat during the winter. Riots and unemployment would be the result of doing nothing. The situation might not devolve to revolution, but the long-term effects could be worse.

Certain conditions in the country, with its large population of migrant farm workers in the north having formed into trade unions, made it ripe for Communist exploitation. The fact that there were large estates which went back to feudal times kept land concentrated in small numbers.

The large population growth, developed from tradition, shaming a family which did not have offspring in the first year after marriage, made prosperity difficult to achieve. The resources in Italy would not support such a burgeoning population.

To remedy these problems, a community interest needed to be established in Western Europe. And it had to be done apart from nationalistic interests and rivalries which had cursed the past.

A letter writer expresses pride in being an average, middle-class American to whom the Government had addressed the invitation to eat less meat and bread. He says that if he could afford the better cuts of meat, he would be able so to sacrifice. He thinks the President was living in a bubble divorced from ordinary American life. For only the rich and gluttonous could afford the better meats. The same was true of eggs and poultry, with eggs running to a dollar per dozen.

A letter from a minister at St. John's Baptist Church in Charlotte expresses protest of the editorial "American Bigotry in Rome", which took issue with the Southern Baptists who had criticized the President for communicating with Pope Pius XII, and the Supreme Court decision which upheld a school district in busing Catholic school children as an essential public function not violative of separation of Church and State. The Baptists had found both actions to violate separation doctrine. He thinks the charge of "bigotry" by the piece was unfair, that the Baptists had legitimate concern regarding the attempt by the Vatican to achieve political aims. He assures that there was no bigotry by Baptists against Catholics.

The editors note that the header contained "bigotry", but not the editorial itself, and agrees that the word was ill-advised.

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