The Charlotte News

Thursday, October 9, 1947

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the Pakistan delegate to the U.N., who two days earlier had suggested that the partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states was analogous to a U.S. state becoming all black, wanted the Palestine committee to close off debate without hearing from the major powers. Dr. Herbert Evatt of Australia, committee chairman, said that he had sympathy with the delegate’s frustrations but had to follow established rules. The frustration came from the fact that neither Russia nor the U.S. had yet made their statements on Palestine. While the U.S. was reported to be supporting the partition plan, the Russians had not yet made up their minds.

In Jerusalem, a military court sentenced two brothers and a third man to seven years each in prison for printing leaflets for Irgun, the violent Jewish underground organization.

The Smith-Mundt joint Congressional committee departed Lisbon after a 1.5 hour meeting with Spain’s Generalissimo Francisco Franco in El Pardo Palace. There was no comment on the meeting, attended by Senator Karl Mundt of South Dakota, and two other members of the committee.

Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin told reporters that the joint Senate-House committee on housing was focusing on lumber prices, which had risen faster than any other. He said that the Congress might need to crack down on profits made by middle men in the lumber industry. A spokesman for the Southern Wholesale Lumber Association took exception, pointing out that one reason for the rise were rising labor costs.

Labor protested the 60-day moratorium requested by the President on consumption of grains by the liquor distillers. The Distillery Workers Union said that 100,000 workers would be laid off by the move, which had received tentative approval from distillers. The workers preferred a 50 percent shutdown for 120 days.

Senator McCarthy and others within the body need not worry, however, as consumers of alcohol, according to the report, would not be adversely impacted by the shutdown. 57-57-57-'57.

A tropical typhoon hit Iwo Jima, which still was guarded by some 300 Army, Air Force, and Coast Guard personnel and their families. The typhoon gusted up to 160 mph and had sustained winds of 130 mph.

In Swatow, China, hundreds were reported lost in a typhoon.

In Findlay, O., a man taken into custody with a companion for questioning pulled a gun and escaped the police station, saw an Episcopal priest and took him as a hostage, entering the sanctuary of the church of which he was Rector. A State Patrolman took off his shoes and crawled toward the front of the church where the man held the priest at gunpoint. The patrolman fired a shot but missed, and after a scuffle during which the priest was able to knock the gun away from the man, the patrolman fired and hit the man in the back. He was in critical condition. There was no indication of the particular basis for the man's original detention by the police, perhaps an overdue fine on a traffic ticket.

In Denver, a six-year old boy who in November, 1944 had received an outpouring of sympathy for his surgery to remove a bladder obstruction which nearly caused his death and resulted in his parents having Christmas in November for him in case he did not live, had again undergone critical surgery the previous day and would have to have yet another serious operation the following January. He was in very satisfactory condition.

Dick Young of The News tells of a third community group endorsement of the 2.5 million dollar bond, to come up for election October 28, for the purpose of construction of a new auditorium. The City Council had passed a resolution putting the bond on the ballot. The resolution is printed on the page.

Delegates of the Western North Carolina Conference of the Methodist Church met in Charlotte this date at the YMCA for a luncheon. Dr. Harry N. Holmes of the New York East Conference spoke on "The Well Equipped Layman", with an inescapable responsibility to his church.

Robert Ball of The Detroit News reports that from an island off the coast of Virginia, robot rocket planes had achieved speeds of about 1,700 mph, beyond Mach II. The experimental flights had transpired over the course of several months. British experiments had also achieved speeds of 900 mph in robotic rocket planes. In all cases, the planes were launched at high altitude from a modified bomber and landed in the sea.

A Government spokesman predicted that it would not be many months before a piloted aircraft of a similar type, a turbojet with a rocket booster motor, would break Mach I, 750 mph at 30,000 feet. Five days later, Chuck Yeager would become the first pilot to exceed the sound barrier.

On the editorial page, "How to Fight the Comintern" tells of the challenge of psychological warfare presented by the new Communist manifesto released by the nine Soviet-bloc nations. It did not rely on any military bluster and discounted America’s ability to respond to it militarily, realizing that America would not use the atomic bomb as an offensive weapon and lacked strength or resolve to wage war otherwise.

The manifesto had been urged forward by the delay in providing foreign aid to Europe, by a Congress which could tie the President’s hands, by the half-hearted attempt to establish a food conservation program, and by the failure to check inflation.

The American people were too reliant on nuclear superiority, producing a "creeping paralysis" in the face of a genuine propaganda threat in Europe from the Russians.

"Slow Education of Congress" tells of the regional sub-committees from Congress studying prices throughout the country. Some testified before the committees that it was the rise in wages which had been the culprit. Housewives blamed the abandonment of price control. Others blamed high taxes or the exports to Europe.

The piece is concerned that all of this process would result in no concrete action which would meet the inflation. But it was being made clear that the investigation should have been conducted before price controls were abandoned a year earlier.

"The Schoolmarms Are Responding" finds that with local communities passing special school taxes, such as the 45-cent assessment passed in Charlotte to supplement State pay, the quality of education, at least in some communities, would gradually rise with better teacher pay.

Currently, Charlotte was paying a college graduate with no experience $1,800 per year, rising to $2,800 after eleven years. Those with master’s degrees received $2,160 after the second year and up to $3,080 after 12 years. While not huge, they were much higher salaries than those in smaller communities in the state.

A piece from the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, titled "Poor Record on Refugees", remarks on eight more Estonian refugees having reached the U.S. in a small boat. Forty-seven others had preceded them during the previous thirteen months. Despite illegal entry to the country, there would be great sympathy for the refugees' plight and pressure on the State Department to allow them to stay. But other refugees also deserved such consideration, such as the thousands living in displaced persons camps in Europe.

Other countries had admitted several thousand each, including Britain, Belgium, Holland, France, and Venezuela, with Britain planning to accept a total of 100,000. The U.S. had given visas to only 21,772 displaced persons, a poor showing relative to population.

The piece recommends prompt legislation to allow for increased immigration outside normal quotas.

Drew Pearson tells of Edwin Nourse, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, having informed the President that something had to be done about inflation, recommending several alternatives, one being to use laws on the books to regulate it. Attorney General Tom Clark promised to study the laws and report back. The President wanted the Chicago grain market investigated for having traded eight billion bushels of wheat when only 1.5 billion had been produced. Secretary of Agriculture Clinton Anderson would ask the Congress for special powers to limit the market.

Argentine dictator Juan Peron had sent an industrial tycoon to New York to find out what could be done to rehabilitate Eva Peron’s reputation, suffering after her trip to Europe, during which she was honored by Fascist dictator Francisco Franco of Spain. The representative was directed to FDR kingmaker and former DNC chairman and Postmaster General Jim Farley, who agreed to represent Ms. Peron in a positive public relations campaign with molders of public opinion.

Look for the dictatrix in your local musical guide.

Leaders of the Farmers Union and National Grange had encouraged the President to ship more food to Europe, believed that more would be necessary than voluntary conservation measures, including price control, selective rationing, and increased production. The President, however, was not enthused at the prospect of those contingencies and was content for the time being to allow Congress to act. The head of the Farmers Union wanted the country fully mobilized to prepare for World War III and desired a frank statement of the President to the American people on the subject. But the President said that universal military training would be enough to attenuate the threat from Russia.

Russia, which cultivated ten million more acres the previous year than before the war, had a wheat surplus, apparently preparing for an emergency. Intelligence reports had it that the Soviets were constructing large underground airdromes and munitions dumps, some close to Alaska.

Mayor William O’Dwyer of New York had urged the President to stand firm on the partition of Palestine and the creation of a Jewish homeland. Ed Flynn, boss of the Bronx, reminded the President that Woodrow Wilson had promised the Jewish homeland, further stating that with the British having created six Arab states, the Jews were entitled to one. The President had given assurance that he would stand firm on the issue.

Mr. Pearson notes that some Irish were in the Jewish underground army.

He tells of Comptroller General Lindsay Warren of North Carolina recently reminiscing on his days in Congress when John Nance Garner was Speaker and the Democrats held a narrow majority during the last two years of the Hoover Administration. Congressman Fiorello La Guardia had been instrumental in enabling a Democratic majority on many measures, and because of his friendship with Mr. Garner, was a power despite the Republicans practically disowning him.

Stewart Alsop tells of the President having asked his advisers and the State Department to comb again possible sources for a few more million dollars in emergency aid for Europe, despite the first effort having been thorough in taking every dollar available, while coming up well short of the necessary minimum to tide Europe through the winter. The President had asked Congress for 580 million dollars in emergency aid, but even this amount would provide only about a quarter of the needed aid.

Congressman John Taber, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, had just returned from Europe and declared that it was fine but for the fact that Europeans were lazy. He viewed the foreign aid program as a political effort to derail his tax cutting and spending reduction efforts. Thus, the prospect of having an emergency aid package by Christmas, as the President wanted, was doubtful. Senator Arthur Vandenberg had informed him that in the Foreign Relations Committee, six or seven Senators could insist on debate before the full Senate and thereby delay the whole program for weeks.

Even the Christmas target date would be late in the process as it would take some time to put goods back into the empty shipping pipeline to Europe.

Mr. Alsop recommends creative "'pushing and stretching'" to find the necessary dollars without being dependent on Congress.

Hal Boyle, in Clear Lake, Iowa, tells of Midwestern cattle ranchers being scared by the prospect of higher grain prices from fattening cattle for market. To use corn as a substitute would take longer, 300 days at a dollar per day per steer. It would cost him, less his other overhead, including the original cost of the steer, $516, while the price per hundredweight was $36 or $504 for a 1,400-lb. steer. Thus, the farmers were not going to buy steers with such a prospect of losing money looming, even on the gamble that the price of fattened cattle would rise within a year. That bet flew in the face of already inflated meat prices and the probable refusal of consumers therefore to pay any more.

The result was that there would not be as much beef to eat in the coming year. One farmer to whom Mr. Boyle spoke believed that the problem would ease if the Government stopped sending so much food overseas, bringing the price of grain down again. He had just received the highest amount ever by a farmer in the county, $60,000 for 138 high grade steers. But he was not going to gamble on raising more at the time, as a hundred would cause him to lose $15,000 at current prices. He might take a chance on 75 if the price of grass-fed steers, before fattening, were to drop. He had the corn to feed the cattle or could sell it at a nice profit. So he faced a dilemma after 25 years of fattening cattle.

Tom Lynch of The News reports of the formation of the World Federalists of North Carolina, a division of the United World Federalists, who advocated world government formed around the U.N.

The movement had begun in 1940, but no activity had taken place in Charlotte in that regard until the previous February. Its former head was R. Mayne Albright, who had resigned to run for governor. UNC president Frank Graham, former Governor J. Melville Broughton, Progressive Farmer publisher Clarence Poe, and other leading citizens were on its advisory board.

Many believed that the great stumbling block to any such vision was the divide between the West and Russia, making world government impossible of achievement. The World Federalists argued, however, that even a world government without the Soviet-bloc nations would be better than what was currently extant.

Herblock....

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