Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President
signed the 597 million dollar emergency aid legislation for Austria,
Italy, France, and China. Shiploads of emergency coal and grain were
already on their way to France and the first shipment to Italy was
set to depart later in the month. Under the bill, 150 million
dollars was made available immediately.
The ship carrying food from the Friendship Train, donated by
individuals and business across America, had arrived in Le Havre,
France.
The President was reported to be finishing a long-range aid
proposal under the Marshall Plan for 16 billion dollars over four
years, to be administered by a new Government agency. His message
was to be sent to Congress by Friday.
Congressman Christian Herter told the House Foreign Affairs
Committee that he favored such a new agency, with four members from
each party.
The Senate was debating whether money should be sent to China
under the emergency aid bill.
The State Department announced that the U.S. and Britain had
agreed that the U.S. henceforth would share a greater portion of the
occupation costs, reportedly 75 percent, in the two economically
combined zones of Western Germany. In return, the U.S. would have
greater say in policy regarding the economy of the two zones.
Previously, the countries shared the costs equally.
Secretary of State Marshall was to address the nation by
radio this night at 10:00 regarding the London foreign ministers
conference, just concluded. He would not return to Washington until
Friday.
Senator Alben Barkley of Kentucky introduced legislation to
authorize the Secretary of Agriculture to release to the public the
names of those engaged in grain speculation, but Senator Taft
blocked the bill from immediate consideration based on his asserted
belief that present law allowed the disclosure. The bill, informed
Senator Barkley, would not exempt from disclosure members of
Congress who had speculated.
The Senate Democratic Policy Committee determined not to try
to block consideration of the Republican anti-inflation measures
which called only for voluntary price control, but that they would
seek to amend it, albeit without the President's urged limited wage
and price controls which the Republicans had vowed not to accept.
The Progressive Party formally launched a movement to
nominate Henry Wallace as a third party candidate for the presidency
in 1948. The chairman of the party and its treasurer both resigned
in protest, not of Mr. Wallace, but rather of waging a third party
campaign, which they said would split the American Labor Party in
New York wide open and also divide liberals in the country.
In Havana, prosecutors and defense counsel concluded final
summations in the very slow trial of the woman accused of murdering
her lover, Mr. Mee, the Chicago attorney whom she shot, alleging
self-defense. The defendant protested openly against prosecutors
asking for her imprisonment for 20 to 30 years. The prosecution had
asked the court to reduce the charge from murder to manslaughter.
She was upset that Mr. Mee was being considered by prosecutors as
high society while they cast aspersions on her reputation as a
nightclub dancer from lower rungs.
The court began barring spectators from the trial the
previous day because of the "sex angles bared" in
summations.
Maybe the courtroom sketch artist could fill in the missing
angles for them.
In Lenoir, N.C., the trial of former high school principal R.
L. Fritz continued on the charge that he had misappropriated $1,600
in school funds by paying it to regular teachers who worked overtime
at the school to keep it operating. A prosecution witness testified
that Mrs. Fritz had received $621 of the money as a teacher and
worker in the office of the school, spending much of her time
supporting his candidacy for the presidency of the North Carolina
Education Association, a position he had won the previous spring.
The witness had worked in the office for seven weeks during the
previous January and February, had never seen Mrs. Fritz out of the
office. Two other witnesses who taught at the school at the time
corroborated the witness testimony insofar as Mrs. Fritz not having
taught at the school.
The Solicitor and defense counsel Sam J. Ervin argued on
admissibility of the testimony of a prosecution witness anent Mrs.
Fritz having stayed at the Sir Walter Hotel in Raleigh where the witness was the
auditor, during certain periods in January and March when she was
supposed to be teaching at the school. Mr. Ervin averred to the
court that on one occasion when Mrs. Fritz purportedly had signed
the register, he, himself, had occupied the room with Mr. Fritz. The
judge ruled in favor of the defense based on the witness not having
observed the actual signing of the register.
In Charlotte, 15 of the 67 arrested bootleggers went to their
initial trial in Recorder's Court and all 15 were found guilty, with
suspended sentences provided. The remaining defendants would proceed
to trial on Friday and Saturday. All would have the right to a trial
de novo in Superior Court.
Ralph Gibson of The News reports of Sammy, a
four-month old cocker spaniel, pictured on the page, who was
receiving a new home by way of gift of the dog from a concerned
Charlotte resident to Governor Gregg Cherry, whose cocker spaniel, Sandy, had died
two days earlier from eating rat poison. Sammy had traveled to the
Governor's Mansion in Raleigh by way of bus.
The Governor had renamed Sammy "Pooch", and had
drafted farewell doggerel to the departed Sandy, which is reprinted
on the page.
We hope that the Governor's staff will remove the rat poison
from Pooch's reach.
On the editorial page, "Rise of the GOP Dark Horses"
remarks on the report earlier in the week that supporters of both
Senator Taft and Governor Dewey were privately admitting that
General Eisenhower presented the most formidable dark horse
challenge among potential Republican candidates for the presidential
nomination in 1948.
Since nothing publicly disclosed would account for such
reactions, it appeared that something was likely brewing behind the
scenes. Part of the reason was probably the recognition by
Republican leaders that neither of the two leading candidates would
provide victory in the coming campaign, as President Truman's stock,
both on foreign relations and domestic programs, had risen
substantially during the previous year since the Republican sweep of
the Congressional elections. While the Republicans criticized
Administration policies, they offered nothing positive as an
alternative.
Former Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen was a dark horse
worth considering for his moderate stance and forthright
articulation of his positions on the major issues. But whether the
GOP leadership would turn to him if they should wind up in a
deadlocked convention between Mr. Taft and Mr. Dewey, remained
dubious.
"Two Germanys and Two Worlds" tells of the end of
the London foreign ministers conference having left two worlds
"conjured up in the apocalyptic vision of men whose minds are
distorted by hate and fear."
Major changes had taken place since the "iron curtain"
speech of Winston Churchill at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo.,
on March 5, 1946. The United States had been thrust into the
leadership role to thwart Soviet expansion and a Soviet bloc had
formed in the East to meet it, developing into the "cold war".
The final act in this division of the former allies during the war
was the separation of East from West in Germany. The destiny of
nations would be decided again, it appeared, in the same country
where the last war had begun. The war, in all forms save the
shooting, would continue as long as there were two Germanys and two
such worlds.
All instincts pointed toward the insanity of this condition
and that it had either to dissolve into unreality or produce
calamity for the world.
The best hope lay in the Marshall Plan, to rebuild Europe.
The Plan recognized that no genuine peace could come until Eastern
Europe was also included. But the Russians had thus far refused to
realize that the Churchill vision of force had been replaced by the
positive rebuilding plan of Secretary Marshall. In the showdown in a
divided Germany, the Soviets might be made to realize the folly of
their course. "It is the last chance."
"Broadway Calls Margaret Truman" tells of a
Broadway restaurant offering a six-week singing engagement to the
First Daughter, offering to pay her $10,000 weekly. (That weekly
sum, incidentally, is as much as the Beatles received for three
shows on Ed Sullivan in 1964.) The President only received $75,000
per year. The restaurant management was willing to change the name
of the establishment from "Chicken Roost" to a more
dignified appellation.
During her concert tour, Ms. Truman had been well received
and drawn capacity crowds.
She had told the junior press in Kansas City that she could
not sing duets with her father as his piano playing did not match
her style of singing. But she fielded questions with the same
agility demonstrated by her father, as when she suggested that the
critics who were not fond of her singing did not disturb her, that
she learned from them. (Her father would ultimately take a different
view of the matter.)
It concludes that it expected the First Family to make more
progress in both art and government, with their evident facility for
learning as they went along.
A piece from the Christian Science Monitor, titled
"Education vs. Communism", tells of the U.S. Commissioner
of Education, John Studebaker, favoring an expanded social studies
curriculum during the four-year high school term to afford better
understanding of world and U.S. history and the development of
democracy. Such would be the best antidote to Communism.
The piece agrees but adds that adequate teachers had first to
be recruited and the Government had to be wary of imposing its ideas
about curricula on the school systems. Politicians could easily
forget the distinction between indoctrination and education.
Drew Pearson tells of a friendly testimonial dinner given for
Governor Dewey by Congressman Frederic Coudert of New York, with no
stress supposedly to have been made on politics. But in fact, the
affair had been quite political. Senator Irving Ives gave a rousing
political speech on behalf of Mr. Dewey. Governor Dewey, himself,
took swipes at the Administration's handling of foreign aid,
particularly the omission of provision for emergency aid for China.
He said that he did not necessarily support the Government of Chiang
Kai-Shek, but believed the country should support the Chinese people
with whom it shared a long tradition of friendship.
Representative Eugene Cox of Georgia, with more relatives on
the Government payroll than any other member of Congress, once
recommended for indictment by the Justice Department, and a champion
poker player, had come out during his visit with the Congressional
delegation in Europe against the U.S. Army de-Nazification program
in Germany. He said that the good Germans were the Nazis who were
loyal to the Hitler Government, which was recognized by the U.S.
until the war began. The U.S. was not friendly, he continued, with
those who were disloyal.
He must also have been a champion drinker.
Former Senator Frederick Hale of Maine said that the only way
the GOP could win in 1948 was with General Eisenhower.
Sigrid Arne of the Associated Press discusses the devaluation
of the ruble in Russia, already thoroughly covered the previous day
in the editorial column and on the front page the day before that.
He provides detail of the Russian plan, suggests that the urban
worker in Russia would gain but that the peasant farmer stood to
lose. During the war, the worker had to spend most of his money to
live, whereas the farmer, who grew his own food and could sell
produce, was able to store up savings. Without rationing under 90
percent devaluation, the city worker could go along as he had before
and even have the ability to buy more goods. But the agrarian worker
was left with devalued money.
There remained many contingencies in the Russian plan yet to
be determined.
James Marlow tells of January 15, 1948 being the deadline
for filing income tax returns for those taxpayers who had nothing
deducted during the year from wages or salaries.
If you are interested, you can read it on your own and file,
if you think you ought, on January 15.
Otherwise, remember to file on the deadline for everyone
else, March 15.
Henry Lesene, in a piece from the Christian Science
Monitor, writes from Columbia, S.C., that the commonest reaction
among Southerners to the report of the President's Commission on
Civil Rights was that it was noble but misunderstanding of the
South's problems, attitudes, and background.
He asserts that substantial progress in recent years had been
effected in race relations and any effort to abolish intolerance
through Federal law would be met with reaction, defeating progress.
Many Southerners believed that segregation was natural, even
if depriving the minority of its proper rights. But blacks were
making progress economically and politically in the South. Some of
the best people of the South were striving for realization of equal
rights for all, regardless of race or ethnicity.
One such person was Mrs. M. E. Tilly of Atlanta, a member of
the Civil Rights Commission, who pleaded for more understanding from
the other members on the problems of the South, to avoid
recrimination and retaliation because of segregation, that such
would be no remedy.
The South needed more Federal aid, not less, to combat some
of the underlying problems which contributed to racial tension,
poverty and unequal education. The South had made great strides
industrially and agriculturally but still remained behind most of
the country in economic well being.
The decision by the Supreme Court raising freight rates for
Northern destinations and lowering of Southern rates by ten percent
each, to equalize the previous disparate rates, had helped. But
still there was inequity in the rates by region.
He posits that incidents as the lynching of Willie Earle in
Greenville, S.C., the previous February, the attempted lynching of
Buddy Bush in Jackson, N.C., the previous May, right after the
acquittal of 28 defendants, mostly cab drivers, plainly guilty by
the admissions of some of their number in the Earle lynching, or the
July shooting to death in Brunswick, Ga., of six prison inmates by
guards who allegedly had lined the men up and shot them, claiming
that they were trying to escape, were not representative of the
South. But such cases showed that when Southern juries practiced
nullification, Southern law enforcement and prosecutors were
rendered helpless in the face of racist crimes.
Even if the Congress abolished the poll tax, he asserts, some
states would find a subterfuge by which to circumvent the ban.
Southern newspapers and religious denominations were campaigning
regularly for the the right of blacks to vote in the South, support
not found in most cases a decade earlier.
But Federal intervention in the economy and in education,
would, according to most Southern observers, lead only to resentment
and delay of progress.
The Atlanta Journal provides another "pome",
this one "emphasizing the fact that straight-forward people are
much to be preferred above all others":
