Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that a relief column of
Greek Government forces had penetrated guerrilla lines at Konitsa,
near the Albanian frontier. The goal of the guerrillas had
apparently been to seize Konitsa as the capital of the newly
declared "free state" of Northern Greece. Some 44,000
refugees had sought protection from the guerrillas in the Konitsa
garrison.
The Greek Government issued a decree outlawing the Communist
Party and the leftist EAM, including any sympathizers with those
organizations, providing for heavy penalties for violation, ranging
from 20 years in prison to death, violators to be tried by military
courts.
At the Damascus gate in Jerusalem, at least 12 Arabs, two
British constables, and one Jew had been killed in fighting after
two Jews in a taxi had hurled a hand grenade and fired a machinegun
at an Arab bus. The occupants of the cab were then chased by two
carloads of Arabs who shot and killed one Jew and wounded the other.
The Arabs then set the taxi on fire and the two constables who tried
to extinguish the blaze and allay the emotions of the crowd, were
then killed.
Near Tel Aviv, an armed band, believed to be Jewish, raided
the British Army's Tel Litwinsky camp and killed one British soldier
and fled with a cache of guns.
In Bethlehem, an Arab doctor, head of the Government mental
hospital, was shot to death in the Ibhasi quarter, near the Church
of the Nativity.
Twenty-one had died the previous day in Palestine by
violence, 13 Arabs, seven Jews and a British soldier. The deaths
brought the total since the November 29 U.N. approval of partition
of Palestine to 424 in Palestine and 545 throughout the Middle East.
Dr. Moshe Sheh resigned his post on the Jewish Agency
executive committee, stating that he believed the Agency had leaned
too much toward the Western powers.
The President, while stating that the voluntary
inflation-control bill passed by the Congress was "pitifully
inadequate", indicated the previous day that he would nevertheless
sign it this date. The bill renewed the President's wartime control
power over the distilling industry and it was anticipated that the Chief Executive
would extend the previous voluntary 60-day distilling industry moratorium on
purchases of grain to provide for a limit of 2.5 million bushels per
month. The voluntary agreement had expired December 24.
In Kansas City, Senator Robert Taft, GOP candidate for the
1948 presidential nomination, referring to the President's criticism
of the bill, stated to the Jackson County Republican Committee that
the President was playing politics with inflation, seeking to shift
the blame to the GOP—where it properly belonged. The President, he
continued, was miffed about not being provided OPA-type wage and
price control powers. Mr. Taft thought that the Republicans had a
very good chance to regain the White House in 1948—as long as
General Eisenhower headed the ticket or as long as the way of
Chicago would be the way of the nation.
Among those newly listed by the Department of Agriculture as
speculators on the grain market, driving up prices, were the
President's personal physician, Brig. General Wallace Graham, and
Governor H. B. Maw of Utah, along with 97 other public officials of
state or local governments. The speculation was not illegal but was
being investigated by Congress to determine whether any insider
trading had been ongoing by public officials. The President also had
spoken against it. Among those listed was a soil surveyor in
Lexington, N.C., employed by the Agriculture Department, who had
purchased 1,000 bushels of wheat during the previous September.
Former Vice-President Henry Wallace was expected to announce
his third party bid for the presidency on this evening, based on his
opinion that the two major parties had become "war"
parties and that a new policy had to be initiated with respect to
the Soviet Union to avoid war. Democratic strategists voiced hope
that Mr. Wallace would severely criticize the President, on the
notion that it would boomerang and redound to the benefit of Mr.
Truman. Republicans hoped that his presence in the
campaign would siphon off left-wing votes from the Democrats.
Senator John Sparkman of Alabama, who would run with Adlai Stevenson
on the ticket in 1952, said that he believed that "extreme
liberals" of the Democratic Party would be drawn to the Wallace
ticket and so would aid the party in shedding its label of being
too far to the left.
Editors of nine American newspapers, whose names and
publications are provided, stated their belief that Communism was
losing ground in the world. They also indicated their opinions that
the Marshall Plan would provide relief for Western Europe. They
expressed no opinion on the 1948 presidential race.
About 100 miles from Nome, Alaska, efforts to rescue four
survivors of a crash of a B-29, dubbed "Clobbered Turkey",
were hampered by heavy fog and sub-zero temperatures. A C-47 transport plane and a
glider had crashed trying to enable the rescue, but none of the
seven aboard was injured. A doctor and two paratroopers had been
dropped to the site of the crash on Saturday, but their radio
equipment had failed, disabling communication.
Former King Vittorio Emanuele III of Italy, 78, died in exile
in Egypt. He had abdicated in May, 1946 in favor of his son,
Umberto, who succeeded to the throne for a month before the Italians
ended the throne in a plebiscite. Emanuele, who had become King in
1900, had been subservient to Mussolini during the latter's reign
from 1923 until 1943, at which point, following the fall of Sicily to the Allies and their entry to Southern Italy, the King played a major role in
getting Mussolini to relinquish power as Il Duce. Emanuele denounced both
Mussolini and Hitler when he eventually gained asylum with the advancing
Allies. He died wealthy, with 6.3 million dollars worth of British
bonds accumulated during the war, which, it was believed, had been
willed to the Italian republic.
In Belmont, N.C., A. C. Lineberger, Sr., well known cotton
textile manufacturer of the region, passed away at age 89.
Also in Belmont, a tree in a hollow exploded after a charge
of dynamite had been set within it, disturbing the entire populace
but resulting in no injuries or damage, save possibly to the tree.
The specie of tree is not provided.
A Cleveland County farmer, age 89, tells how he learned the
previous year for the first time to grow a hundred bushels of corn
per acre. You may read of it in the Carolina Farmer section of the
newspaper—only available, for fear of revelation of state secrets,
to select subscribers.
On the editorial page, "Farmers and the Marshall Plan"
tells of a poll conducted by Successful Farming magazine,
showing that 52 percent of the sample had never heard of the
Marshall Plan. The result suggested that much of the country did not
read its newspapers or listen even to the radio.
But the piece thinks it more indicative of the fact that the
farmers were busy producing during the year, to feed both Americans
and the peoples of foreign lands.
The fact demonstrated the absence of more than a small amount
of leisure time for Americans involved in producing and transporting
goods. At the end of the day, there was little energy remaining for
intellectual pursuits. But these producers and transporters were
responsible for the nation's welfare and that of those abroad, and
took their jobs quite seriously.
"Red Desperation in Greece" suggests that the
guerrilla attacks which had begun again in Greece the previous week
showed Communist desperation in the Mediterranean. The guerrillas
could not hope realistically for success. But the object in Greece
was to establish a base for obtaining control of the Dardanelles,
controlled by Turkey, enabling Soviet access to the Mediterranean
and into the Middle East. Turkish defenses were on the alert.
The guerrilla action was defensive in nature, to strengthen
the Red base in Northern Greece to enable repulsion of the assaults
by the Athens Government forces.
The revival of warfare, it posits, could not hide the fact
that the position of the anti-Communist nations in the Eastern
Mediterranean was much stronger at the end of 1947 than at its
beginning, prior to the Truman Doctrine aid to both Turkey and Greece, passed by the Congress and signed by the President the previous spring.
"Republican Lesson on Tariffs" suggests that the
Republican desire to raise tariffs and possibly not to approve the
recent Geneva trade agreement, pursuant to which 23 nations had
agreed to lower tariffs, or renew the Reciprocal Trade Agreements
Act showed the party out of step with the rank-and-file membership
and the American people generally. A Gallup poll showed that of
those who had heard of the Geneva agreement, 63 percent approved it
and only 12 percent opposed, with nearly equal numbers among
Republicans and Democrats.
House Ways & Means Committee chairman Harold Knutson
stood opposed to both agreements and House Speaker Joe Martin stated
that it was unlikely that the approval would be given to renew RTAA
unless final authority on tariff reductions was transferred from the
President to Congress.
The American people, as shown by the poll, had found the
wisdom that tariff reduction, lowering trade barriers, was a key to
international peace and that economic prosperity domestically
depended on international trade, even at the expense of foreign
competition from cheaper goods.
A piece from the Asheville Citizen, titled "First
Dog", tells of the Trumans having a cocker spaniel named
"Feller", hard-pressed as he was to follow in the
pawprints of Fala. Feller was from Illinois originally and flew to
his new home.
The piece wonders whether he would be forced to howl when his
master sat down at the piano or when Margaret Truman sang.
It suggests that Feller, as a puppy only six weeks or so old,
might not make it to dog middle-age in the White House were things to go wrong the
following November. He needed to live a circumspect life, lest he be
without a friend come January 20, 1949.
Looking into the crystal ball, it would appear that
Feller would deliver everywhere except in his home breeding ground
of Chicago, and so what would happen to him, whether to be purged, exiled
to Alaska, or to continue within the warm embrace of the First Family,
remains anyone's guess. He might wind up the Dewey dog, or possibly
become related in the future to another noteworthy cocker, a
Republican. Whatever the case, he will, we predict, eventually have to move to Blair House while the whole White House interior has to be torn out and replaced, perhaps the result of Feller, perhaps not.
Ye Fala?
A Quote of the Day: "Many a man starts out to show his
wife who is boss—and soon finds out." —Columbia Record
Barnet Nover, continuing in substitution of vacationing
Marquis Childs, tells of the delight of the Panamanian people at the
unanimous rejection by their Assembly of the American-sought
long-term lease of fourteen military bases, potentially compromising
the American defense of the Canal Zone. The people longed to prove
their independence from America. It was a sentiment which pervaded
Latin America.
During the war, the U.S. had established 134 air bases, radar
installations, air strips and other military facilities within
Panama outside the Canal Zone, authorized by a 1942 treaty. The
treaty technically would have permitted the U.S. to maintain its
bases, regardless of the Assembly action, as it allowed for
continuing use for a year after the last peace treaty ending the war
with Japan. But the U.S. had instead chosen to withdraw from the
bases in question.
Whether the action would compromise defense of the Canal was
left unanswered. The American brass had considered some of the
bases, especially Rio Hata, capable of accommodating B-29's,
essential to defense. (Whether Rio Hata, incidentally, was kin to
Panama Hattie remains a mystery.)
The Assembly's action, he suggests, in obeisance to the will
of the Panamanian people, could result in the realization of the long debated idea of
building another route between the Atlantic and Pacific.
James Marlow tells how to write to a Congressman or Senator.
Study it closely and follow the instructions to the t. You are bound
to receive a reply sometime early in 1948. If you don't, blame the
Post Office, not your Congressman or Senator, for the failings in accordance with wishes of both Christmas Past and Future.
Barry Bingham, editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal,
tells of life in occupied Germany, in which the 66 million Germans
lived without real government, as the four-power central Government
in Berlin had never actually functioned. The Soviets had never
intended it to function. He had returned to Germany in November,
1947, after being away since October, 1946, viewing on the more
recent visit the ruined country, with its ordered rubble now in
piles, as being as depressing as ever. Gone were hopes of a
quadripartite agreement. Soon the economically united
Franco-Anglo-American zone would become a reality.
General Lucius Clay was the most dominant figure in Western
Germany, having authority over 18 million Germans in the U.S. zone
and increasing influence in the British zone. American troops in the
zone had volunteered to be there, in replacement of the previous
contingent after the war who were interested only in getting home.
Seventy percent of the Military Government were civilians, with
uniformed personnel declining. Among the command were top-rate
officials and some who were plainly misfits. General Clay was an
excellent administrator, but had announced his intention to retire
in 1948. No suitable replacement had been suggested.
The German people a year earlier had expressed openly to
Americans their intent to democratize the country. But now they were
complaining and criticizing. Work was grossly underpaid, a daily
wage of 1.25 marks for steelworkers not even permitting purchase of a single American
cigarette on the black market. Shortages were routine. But rationed
food was within the reach of everyone, notwithstanding the German
claims that they were starving. The basic diet was 1,550 calories
per day, more for children and expectant and nursing mothers, up to
4,000 calories per day for miners. The average intake was about
1,750 calories per rationing plus 200 more from other sources. The
British zone permitted 2,700 calories but, based on the British
austerity program at home, was being cut during the winter to 2,500.
The German people felt no personal responsibility for Hitler
or German aggression in the war. They claimed to have gone along
with the program, not mindful of the reasons or the results. One
notorious war criminal, Friedrich Frick, had testified at his trial that he was
only "howling with the wolves" in the Nazi hierarchy when
he gave orders to torture or exterminate slave laborers. He
claimed that he did not expect his orders to be followed.
While some of the contingent of Senators and Congressmen who had visited
Germany during the summer had misbehaved, most made a close study of
the situation and the visit was proving the best thing which had
happened to Germany during the previous year.
Sherry Bowen of the Associated Press tells of Secretary of
State Marshall having been selected by the editors of A.P.
newspapers as the top newsmaker and outstanding person in foreign
affairs of 1947. The piece recaps his first year on the job,
initiating the Marshall Plan proposal in June as part of his address
at Harvard, and also proposing the approved "Little Assembly"
plan at the U.N., whereby the political committee became a permanent
standing committee to offset the unilateral veto available to the Big Five memnbers on the Security Council.
Senator Robert Taft was selected as the outstanding political
figure of the year, for his pushing through the Taft-Hartley bill
over the veto of the President the previous June and formally
announcing in October his decision to run for the Republican
presidential nomination.
Walter Reuther, president of UAW, was selected as the
outstanding person in labor for his November victory at the UAW
convention, capturing re-election along with his slate of officers
of the governing board of the union.
Henry Kaiser was selected outstanding industrial leader in
preference to Henry Ford, Howard Hughes or Robert Young.
Bing Crosby won in the entertainment field, nosing out Ingrid
Bergman and Bob Hope, along with about 20 others receiving large
numbers of votes. Mr. Hope had been selected the previous year.
Andre Gide, the French Nobel Prize winner, was selected
outstanding contributor to literature.
A Quote of the Day: "Men are more often victims of
accidents than women. Possibly because one of the accidents to males
is women." —Dallas Morning News
Happy Fourth Day of Christmas: Four piano players disconcerted.
Happy Fifth Day of Christmas: Five cockers in the wings in waiting.
