The Charlotte News
Monday, November 10, 1947
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Secretary of State Marshall asked Congress to approve 597 million dollars worth of emergency aid to Europe for the winter and then another 7.5 billion dollars to cover the ensuing 15 months from March 31, 1.5 billion of which would be necessary for the remaining three months of the fiscal year. Long-range aid would cost 16 to 20 billion dollars over the slated four-year recovery period. The Harriman committee had estimated only 12 to 17 billion dollars in necessary aid.
The proposals drew praise from both Republicans and Democrats.
The Secretary also stated that China remained of concern and that a proposed aid program was being prepared. He indicated for the first time the official U.S. stance toward China, that the Government of Chiang Kai-Shek was the only recognized government of the troubled country.
The President informed Congress in a written message that Greece was still free as a result of American aid, but that its economic plight was not significantly improved and its military stance was in worse condition. He also stated, however, that, provided order could be restored and preserved, there was every reason to be optimistic about the recovery of Greece. The Greek Army's summer campaign to defeat the guerrilla forces had been thwarted by the continuing support of the guerrillas from Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Albania, and the need for the Army to defend the villages against guerrilla attacks, displacing troops who would otherwise have been used in an offensive campaign. Some of the money devoted to recovery and reconstruction had been diverted therefore to the military aid program such that about 168 million of the 300 million dollars appropriated for the Greek aid program was now devoted to military aid.
Initial steps were also being taken under the aid program to bolster Turkey, for which 100 million dollars had been appropriated.
Former Senator Robert La Follette of Wisconsin was being discussed as the possible administrator of the Marshall Plan. He had been chairman of the two Harriman committees which rendered reports on the nation's resources and capabilities of providing the aid.
Soviet delegate Semen Tsarapkin stated at the U.N., in a closed session of a four-nation "working party" of the Palestine subcommittee, that Russia was prepared to make concessions to the U.S. regarding the Palestine partition plan. He said that Russia would agree with the proposal suggested by Canada, that Britain end its mandate at the beginning of 1948 but remain to administer Palestine during transition until the separate Arab and Jewish states could be established. It was yet unknown whether the U.S. was in complete agreement with these proposals regarding the course of transition.
In Detroit, Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam of New York said that the abolition of Jim Crow laws and paying teachers higher salaries would strike a greater blow to Communism than the HUAC hearings on Hollywood.
Howard Hughes
Presidential candidate Harold Stassen of Minnesota was optimistic about world peace and thought he had a fighting chance to become President. The former Governor was initiating a speaking tour of the Southern states.
In Atlantic City, CIO president Philip Murray endorsed Walter Reuther for re-election as president of the UAW.
In the North Atlantic, the previous Tuesday, a U.S. Army hospital ship, the Charles A. Stafford, rescued 31 Portuguese fishermen in a foundering schooner, 640 miles southeast of Newfoundland.
The remaining at-large escaped inmate from the prison ward of the State Tubercular Sanatorium at Sanatorium, N.C., had been captured in Lincoln County the previous night. The other two escapees had already been recaptured. The three were facing multiple charges in connection with the escape.
An eclipse of the sun was set to be visible at noon the following Wednesday, but would be only a partial eclipse from the vantage point of the United States.
In Camden, N.J., Dudgie and Pitty Sling were the named principal beneficiaries of the $32,000 estate of a retired school teacher who had died the previous year at age 75. The man placed in charge of the two heirs was to receive a dollar per day. Dudgie thought that was too much and Pitty Sling was upset that she did not get all of the loot so she could run off to Jamaica with her lover, of whom Dudgie was quite jealous, prone to exhibit rage whenever the subject was raised.
There was a will contest brewing in the wings, according to Camden scuttlebutt, hush-hush and on the Q.T.
Sports editor Ray Howe tells of UNC
having soundly beaten N.C. State in football the previous Saturday,
41-6. The Moosicians
On the editorial page, "Don't Get Hysterical Now" finds the celebration in Moscow of the 30th anniversary of the Revolution to have been an hysterical performance which underscored the wisdom of former Secretary of State James Byrnes when he advised against reacting hysterically to Soviet propaganda statements. The aim of the propaganda was to keep Americans agitated and busy responding on the defensive. But focus had to be maintained on preservation of the U.N. and fostering of the Marshall Plan.
The Russians were now attempting to goad America into a foolish position, one advocated by Mr. Byrnes, Herbert Hoover, and Senator Arthur Vandenberg, to form a separate treaty with Germany should the foreign ministers conference in London again fail to conclude a treaty. That would leave Eastern Germany in the hands of Russia, indefinitely defer industrial recovery of Western Europe, and place the blame of frustrating Germany's aspirations for national unity on the U.S., tending to turn the Germans toward the Soviets and away from the West.
Secretary of State Marshall and other leaders were not so deceived and understood the peril of trying to effect a separate treaty. The Secretary never allowed his optimism to flag, especially as he was aware that the Soviets soon would need to retreat to Moscow.
"Nobody But Us Chickens" tells of the confusion resulting from the Food Committee's about-face on poultryless Thursdays, reversing itself on the basis that uneaten chickens remaining on the farm were consuming too much grain. Thus, now the advice was to eat more chicken, 136 million more by the beginning of 1948.
The editorial writer says that in
the rush to comply
The new directive made no sense
economically. Charles Luckman, chairman of the Food Committee,
originally had proposed a wheatless Thursday, but that did not appeal
to some of the Government experts and so it became a poultryless day
Mr. Luckman was an expert in soap
and a successful businessman, and the fact that his call was correct
had restored the editorialist's confidence in private enterprise. But
the Congress and the Administration were another case. Their
collective wisdom in trying to restrain inflation without rationing
or consumer price control made about as much sense as eggless
Thursdays.
"Sales Tax Is Not an Issue" relates that gubernatorial candidate Charles Johnson had stated that the state sales tax would probably never be repealed. He was probably correct, the piece asserts, given that most of the revenue went to support education, coupled with the dearth of other means by which the state could raise substantial revenue. It was unlikely the remark would cost Mr. Johnson votes as it was improbable that the other candidates in the field would seek to make an issue of it, as the electorate was not apparently concerned. The statement merely reflected cold realism on the part of Mr. Johnson.
A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled "Motorists Forewarned", tells of drivers whose last names began with A and B having only until the beginning of 1948 to renew their driver's licenses, and that only a fourth thus far had done so.
Better hurry before the Highway Patrol catches you heedless on January 2. At that point, you will be on the paddle without a creek in which to put it.
Drew Pearson, still aboard the "Friendship Train", to which he gave birth, heading from Los Angeles to New York collecting food for Europe along the way, tells of the train representing American teamwork. He relates of several examples of how people had pulled together to provide supplies for the train.
Ronald Reagan, president of the
Screen Actors Guild, had given actors permission to perform as the
train departed Los Angeles, replete with its carload of evaporated
milk
Harry Warner, chairman of the Friendship Train Committee, set aside warnings that the train departure ceremonies would take away business from the theaters and that many European governments were banning American movies. His response was that if peace was not achieved in the world, there would be no theater business at all.
Civic organizations, Rotary, Lions, and Kiwanis clubs, all were participating in collection of food.
Morton Bodfish was the most effective real estate lobbyist in Washington, in a particularly effective lobby. The U.S. Savings and Loan League, which he represented, published a magazine which had stated that the new rent law passed earlier in the year, permitting 15 percent increases on leases which extended through 1948, would allow effectively for a 34.9 percent net increase in landlords' income before depreciation if the apartment house remained fully occupied. Yet, the landlords were still claiming that they could not make a good profit and were seeking further increases.
A small piece from Pittsburgh tells of Robert Nathan, former head of the planning commission of the War Production Board, having estimated that 400 million dollars would be required to carry out the partition plan of Palestine during the ensuing two years of resettlement of 150,000 European Jews. He and economist Oscar Gass had regarded the estimate as conservative.
Roscoe Drummond of the Christian Science Monitor finds that the story of the Roosevelt Administration was being told thus far by its participants, who mainly provided praise. Frances Perkins, Henry Morgenthau, James Byrnes, and Elliott Roosevelt had produced memoirs, as well as the often critical recounting by James Farley. Harry Hopkins was soon to have a posthumous memoir, compiled by playwright and friend Robert Sherwood, and former Secretary of State Cordell Hull would also soon produce such an account.
He hopes that anon, qualified, objective historians would begin to produce the history, based on full and free access to the records of the Government and the official documents of FDR. But there was some move afoot by admirers of the former President to restrict access to his papers to those historians and journalists who would produce admiring accounts.
FDR admirer, Professor William Langer, was receiving preferred access while other historians, according to Charles Beard, were locked out. Professor Beard wanted the documents open to all citizens and he had made a persuasive case for it.
Victor Riesel tells of James Caesar Petrillo, head of the Federation of Musicians, working on a scheme to prevent all current recordings from being played on the radio. He wanted all recordings to bear the label "for home use only". Were he to succeed, Congress would likely seek to put him in jail. Mr. Riesel notes that Taft-Hartley wiped out the musicians' welfare fund which had taken in four million dollars during the previous two years, forcing the union to end its free concerts paid from the fund.
Only 14 of 41 CIO unions had filed their financial and non-Communist affiliation statements required by Taft-Hartley. Of the 105 AFL unions, 66 had complied, as had 30 of the 48 large independent unions. The deadline had passed at the end of October.
The trainmen's unions were plunging more into politics than either CIO or AFL. They had pledged to back Mayor Hubert Humphrey of Minneapolis should he run for the Senate against incumbent Joseph Ball—as he would, winning and beginning his long political career, culminating in the Vice-Presidency and close loss to Richard Nixon for the Presidency in 1968.
In Iowa, football broadcasts were being used by the CIO UAW workers and the packing house workers to promote their unions. The workers said that they were carrying the ball—but were they completing many passes?
Democrats for Henry Wallace were reported to have a machine in every California Congressional district and were planning soon to move into Oregon. His Progressive Party had 500 chapters across the country, with CIO fronting many of them. Howard Fast of the Daily Worker had spoken at some Progressive Party functions promoting civil liberties in the wake of the HUAC hearings of the latter half of October into Communist infiltration in Hollywood. Mr. Fast had authored a biography on Marshal Tito. Mr. Riesel remarks that Mr. Fast had favored civil liberties for everywhere except Yugoslavia.
Mr. Riesel wants to know why the Progressive Party did not protest so loudly of the break-up of anti-Communist rallies by Communists in France and Hungary as it had of its own rally in Philadelphia.
That question has a self-evident answer, Mr. Riesel, when one considers it.
Hollywood was planning to re-release 41 old movies, causing a slash of jobs in Hollywood and New York. They were probably those old slasher movies, to offset the void left by having to pull from release all of the Commie fare being produced, seeping into the minds of Americans, inducing them to follow Communism.
Samuel Grafton tells of Martin making an appointment for 2:30 p.m. to see Ed in Ed's office. Ed thought it must be important. When Martin arrived, he got right to the point, that the leftwingers were meeting at the schoolhouse the next night—probably at 9 o'clock, right after the rightwingers exited from the first to the right.
Martin wanted to break up the meeting because there were a couple of Commies among those attending and thus should not be allowed to use their schoolhouse for a gathering—especially if it happened to be a little red schoolhouse.
Ed thought it was just words, that they ought be allowed to voice their views. If they were stopped, then all other such meetings at the schoolhouse would have to be stopped, lest a czar determine who could and who could not use it.
Martin withdrew a pencil from his vest pocket and began to play with it, as Ed asked whether the biggest argument against Russia was not American freedom. Stopping the meeting would be no different from the Russian tactics.
Martin then broke the pencil and said that he had wanted to know where Ed stood, and, having satisfied his purpose, departed.
Ed put the broken halves of the pencil into the wastebasket, looking down at the two pieces after he had done so. Words had been spoken and this small violence had taken place in result. He put a sheet of typewriter paper over the pieces. The cleaning woman would clear it out during the night.
But if the cleaning woman happened to be Russian...
A letter writer supports the statement of actor Robert Taylor before HUAC when he urged that Communists in America return to Russia or "some other unpleasant place". She tells of the remark presented on a newsreel having produced loud applause in the theater in which she saw it.
Which, madam, only goes to show that the patrons who applaud in a movie theater to a non-live presentation are usually either too young or too unthinking as adults to realize that applause, generally, is meant as an expression of appreciation intended to be heard by a live performer, and is not heard by those on the silver screen, unless the applauders still think that the actors are somewhere backstage in shadow play. The applause in a movie theater is an exercise in reactionary vanity, as if to say, "Look at me, I liked this here performance, and I don't care that no one hears my clapping but these other non-clappers who are obviously dolts, too dumb to appreciate the clappable program which I just witnessed."
Framed Edition
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