Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that in London at the
foreign ministers conference, Soviet Foreign Commissar V. M. Molotov
provided that the price of assent by Russia to economic unification
of Germany, as championed by Secretary of State Marshall, was the
previously stated demand of ten billion dollars from Germany in
reparations and repeal of the economic merger of the American and
British zones.
The previous night, Secretary Marshall had met with French
Foreign Minister Georges Bidault and British Foreign Secretary
Ernest Bevin, presumably to consolidate their positions.
Theretofore, Secretary Marshall carefully had refrained from participation in any
such separate negotiations among the three Western powers, apart from
Russia.
In Paris, a scheduled walkout by subway and bus workers, as part of the nationwide strike by the Communist-dominated General
Confederation of Labor, was called off
because the strike was a failure. Likewise, a strike of Government
workers was having limited success.
It was anticipated that the House would pass the emergency aid
bill for France, Italy, and Austria this date or the following day.
In Oak Ridge, Tennessee, workers at the atomic energy plant were
negotiating for a 25-cent wage increase per hour, threatening to
strike within 24 hours if the demand was not met.
Senator William Knowland of California revealed that American
diplomatic and military officials in Rumania had suffered searches
by the Government of their homes and automobiles by Rumanian secret
police. Apparently the searches had occurred prior to September 20 and appeared the result of Rumanian concern that a break in diplomatic
relations with the U.S. was imminent.
The Senate began consideration of the Inter-American Treaty
formed in Rio de Janeiro the previous August.
The Agriculture Department estimated that the year's cotton crop
would be 11.69 million bales, an increase of 180,000 bales over the
previous month's estimate, and three million bales above that of
1946.
The President returned to Washington after his five-day Florida
vacation. Staff remarked that his Saturday speech on the dedication
of the Everglades National Park was designed to keep politics to a
minimum during the special session of Congress.
The Supreme Court, in Patton v. Mississippi, 332 U.S. 463, an unanimous decision delivered by Justice Hugo
Black, ordered a new trial for Eddie Patton, who had been convicted
in Mississippi of murder in 1946 and sentenced to death in the
electric chair for killing a white man. Mr. Patton successfully had
asserted that blacks were systematically excluded from the jury at
his trial, as well as from the grand jury which had indicted him. The defense showed that for thirty years, Lauderdale County
had called no blacks to serve on grand or petit juries, despite blacks
constituting a third of the population in the most recent census.
The practice of systematic exclusion of members of a given race from the jury pool, stated the Court, had been held for 68 years to
deprive defendants of Equal Protection and Due Process pursuant to the Fourteenth
Amendment.
Given the Court's decision, it did not need to determine whether, as contended, parts of a confession by the defendant had been
coerced and extorted from him by use of force and intimidation.
The Court was about to hear oral argument in the case of McCollum v. Board of Education, anent a
Champaign, Illinois, woman who was challenging as an atheist the
religious education classes conducted in the public school attended
by her son. She contended that the religious instruction violated
separation of church and state, as provided in the Establishment
Clause of the First Amendment, forbidding the Government from
establishing a religion. The school district maintained that the
non-mandatory classes, conducted by a religious council on school
property, were non-sectarian, as the council was comprised of
representatives from the Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish religions.
The woman complained that her son was embarrassed by being the only
non-participant.
Eventually, the following March, the case would be decided in favor of the woman, a concurring opinion of four members of the Court stating that in the field of religious separation doctrine, "good fences make good neighbors".
And to the deniers who persist in claiming that there is no such
"separation" provided in the First Amendment, we again
instruct on basic logic, that if the state cannot establish a
religion, necessarily church and state are separate. It is no more
complex than that, the complexity, if there be any, coming in the determination in close cases as to
what constitutes an establishment of religion by the state and thus
infringes the wall of required separation. It derives from the
Founders' concern that a dominant religion, as with the Church of
England, could be established by the Government and then lead to
religious warfare. It is not to champion atheism over some form of religious doctrine. It is not to permit Catholics use of the public school buses to attend parochial schools, not an infringement of separation as held in the case the previous term, while allowing atheists to throw religion out of the public schools. That is not the point. Religious instruction belongs in the church or religious school, not the public schools.
Stop being dumb.
For the first time since partition of Palestine by the U.N. on
November 29, there was no front page news this date on violence in
Palestine between Arabs and Jews.
In Los Angeles, it was reported that new births would total
40,000, thirty percent higher than in the previous five years and
twelve percent higher than in 1946.
Governor Gregg Cherry stated in Charlotte that progress in the
state's mental institutions would enable 250 patients to be
transferred to the new Camp Butner facility from the Caswell
Training School.
A photograph appears of News Editor William Reddig
chatting with the Governor.
The Carolina Farmer section of the newspaper tells of a Davie County farmer who had learned to derive, through soil conservation techniques, as much corn from five acres as had once been grown on thirty acres of his farm.
In Atlantic City, N.J., two women who had won the national open
pairs championship at bridge discovered upon return to their hotel
rooms that they had been robbed of $4,000 in jewels and furs.
The prize booty consisted of a beaver coat, worth $1,697, and a
diamond-platinum bracelet worth $2,000. If you see that beaver coat
or bracelet, snatch them back for the ladies.
The waterfowl season was opening in the state this date, but
because of the decline in population of the birds, it would be 15
days shorter than the previous year. Better hurry and fire at will.
But remember: the bag limit is four ducks per day and the possession
limit, eight. For geese, both limits are one.
On the editorial page, "Soviet Holds Trumps in Germany"
tells of the demand by Secretary of State Marshall that Russia
explain by this date its position on a united Germany and what it
would expect in return for assent to the Western position on that
count being revelatory of the upper hand held by Russia on the matter,
of central significance to success in rebuilding Europe.
The situation appeared simple to advocates of a separate treaty
with Germany, to have one united zone for the West and leave Russia
to its own separate Eastern zone. Secretary Marshall had never
advocated such an approach, except as a last resort. But he was also
aware of the heavy price to be paid to Russia for such agreement.
His chances for success at achieving German unity appeared slight as
the Russians would demand too much. But if Russia wound up with
control of the Eastern sector, it would enable it to continue to
seek to undermine the Western democracies.
"Poor Service to Car Drivers" tells of a bottleneck
developing in the bureaucratic framework to serve the citizenry
under the new law requiring a driver's license and motor vehicle
inspection. The A and B alphabetic groups were being served for the
latter six months of the year, and C and D would begin after the
first of the year. The Highway Patrol was assigning a hundred more
officers to the process.
That surely is a relief. You don't want to have to go down there
and tire out your dogs every day for nothing. Get down 'ere early, C
or D, crispy-frosty, on January 2.
"Six Years after Pearl Harbor" suggests that observers
might be worried that the country was wielding the "Big Stick"
following the war, as analyzed in another piece on the page by John
L. Springer of the Associated Press. The junction in time which the
country had reached appeared to be determinative of war or peace
with Russia, its climax being the current London foreign
ministers conference, following a series of stalemated efforts to
conclude the terms of the peace.
Columnist DeWitt Mackenzie had asked rhetorically why the
diplomats did not simply abandon the conferences and get about the
job of ending the cold war. That, he posited, would be an admission
of the existence of two worlds, which the diplomats were loath to
confess. They recognized that the capacity of the nations to
organize two worlds was beyond their means, that neither power had
the military or economic strength to do so. It was madness to ask
the world to choose between the American way and the Soviet way.
If the powers could reach agreement finally in London, then the
world could rest assured that it was on the road to having
experienced the last war in history.
A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled "What
Is an Editor?" discusses the first meeting of the Conference of
Editorial Writers, held in Washington, mulling in its first session
the technique of editorial art or craft. The editors had determined
that there were no standards for editorial writing, though there
were for editors, who needed to be well-educated and in command of
literature of the Great Books variety. The editor should have a
sense of humor, have a knowledge of the law, understand countries
abroad, as well as local politics. He or she should be well-versed
in science, politics generally, tariffs, and taxation. And
determined to maintain the spirit of changing the world each day
with the editorial commentary. Complicated facts had to be rendered
simply and in a straightforward manner. And finally the editor had
to work for considerably less money than could be obtained in any
other profession.
It suggests that it was thus no wonder that such a person was
hard to find.
Drew Pearson tells of the romance of Madame Sun Yat-Sen, widow
of the founder of the Chinese Republic, to American Army Captain
Gerald Tannebaum of Baltimore having the Chinese Government worried
for the fact of the veneration by Chinese, Communists and
Nationalists, of Madame Sun. She was the sister-in-law of Chiang
Kai-Shek, sister to Madame Chiang. She was regarded at high levels
of the Kuomintang as the black sheep of the family for her advocacy
of peace between the Nationalists and Communists. Some privately
regarded her as a Communist. But publicly, she was considered a
national shrine, with Government guards assigned to protect her. The surveillance had led to
revelation of the romance.
The U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., former Senator Warren Austin,
had risen at the conclusion of the General Assembly meeting to
provide a salute to Secretary-General of the U.N. Oswaldo Aranha of
Brazil, a close friend of the U.S. During the early phases of the
war, he had convinced Brazilian President Vargas that the U.S. would
recover its offensive capability and win the war, persuading him to
provide to the U.S. strategic bases in Brazil. Mr. Pearson believes
that Sr. Aranha deserved the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts at
the recent session.
The Army was balking at paying high prices for surplus dried
fruits, dried eggs, sweet potatoes and peanuts, all valuable to
European relief. The Agriculture Department argued that the prices
would be beneficial to American farmers while supplying the needs of
the Europeans. It appeared that Congress would need settle the
dispute. Senator Carl Hayden of Arkansas had proposed that the
surplus be made available to the Army at the same price per calorie
as wheat. The Congress would make up the losses to the Agriculture
Department.
Marquis Childs, en route through East Texas, tells of the sheep
and cattle growers working to maintain the tariffs which had
protected them for years from foreign competition. They were
targeting the tariff agreements made the previous summer in Geneva,
prefatory to the charter of the International Trade Organization,
which represented a victory for sanity. The U.S. had made tariff
concessions on woolen and leather goods, whiskey, pottery and other
products. The other nations who were party to the charter made
concessions on trade to open new markets for American goods.
The most important concession was that the British Commonwealth
agreed to modify its trade preference to members of the
Commonwealth.
The concessions by the U.S. were outweighed in importance by the
concessions obtained, as imports could be absorbed in a time of
great prosperity in the country.
A small minority of cattlemen were lobbying to eliminate current
grazing restrictions on public lands, threatening the vitality of
the resource to feed their own greed. They were in essence seeking
to trade the land for a commodity which could be bought more cheaply
on the foreign market.
If wool was so important to security, as the wool growers
claimed, then the Government ought buy it in quantity and stockpile
it.
Adoption of the ITO charter by the Congress was as important as
approval of ERP. Renewal of the Reciprocal Trade Agreements was also
essential.
In 1930, the Smoot-Hawley Act was passed, raising tariffs. It
had precipitated disaster as nations followed in its tracks, raising
their own tariffs, beginning the world economic collapse which led
finally to the war.
Rejection of the ITO and failure of renewal of the Reciprocal
Trade Agreements would be the equivalent of a passive form of return
to Smoot-Hawley.
He urges that the small minority of cattle and sheep growers,
acting for selfish ends, should not be allowed to lobby their way
into defeat of the future peace of the world.
Victor Riesel discusses the launch in Washington of the new AFL
PAC, dubbed the Educational and Political League. They believed that
they could make or break a presidential candidate in 1948. They
wanted Senator Taft to run so that they could engage him in a
head-to-head debate on Taft-Hartley.
John L. Lewis, who started the campaign against the law, was now
boycotting the movement of the AFL PAC, and waging a campaign
against it. He was going to stop UMW dues from going to AFL and try
to force the labor organization to expel the miners. His ultimate
desire was to run AFL and when he had been rejected soundly by the
recent convention from its leadership, it caused him to take a
retaliatory stand.
Bill Hutcheson of the carpenters union also was boycotting the
campaign against Taft-Hartley. He appeared to be headed toward
becoming the Republican labor chairman in 1948.
The focus of the AFL PAC would be to get out the vote among
workers. The committee would work quietly behind the scenes, with
business agents working in the factories, homes, and union halls.
John L. Springer of the Associated Press suggests that the odds
were now against a war with Russia. Since the American Revolution,
there had been six declared wars and ten points of tension which ended
without war. Rumors of war had characterized the country since its
early days. He recaps some of the close calls, from the XYZ Affair with the French in 1798-99, the "54-40 or Fight" dispute with the British in 1846 anent the proper border of the Oregon Territory, tensions with Britain and France during the Civil War for rumblings of support for the Confederacy, the 1889 problem with Germany's claim to American Samoa, the 1895 Monroe Doctrine issue over Britain's disputed boundary separating British Guiana and mineral-rich Venezuela, the 1902 confrontation between Germany, for its aggression toward Venezuela, and TR, who coined the expression "speak softly and carry a big stick", through the 1916
punitive expedition into Mexico by General Pershing, chasing down
Pancho Villa and his men for the attack at Columbus, N.M., on
American citizens.
Yet for all the odds in favor of peace, it remained impossible
to predict, in a given situation, what the outcome would be.
