The Charlotte News

Friday, March 28, 1947

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Warren Austin, told the U.N. Security Council that the President's proposal for aid to Greece and Turkey envisaged a plan to back up the U.N. and its goal for collective security with the power of the United States. He assured that the U.S. supported the right of all peoples freely to select their own form of government, as long as the choice was freely made. He added that the United States looked forward to a time when the U.N. could shoulder such burdens on an emergent basis.

George H. Earle, a former diplomat and Governor of Pennsylvania, contended to HUAC that were it not for the United States having sole possession of the atom bomb, Russia would have already fanned its armies over all of Europe and most of Asia. He claimed that the "S" countries, Sweden, Switzerland, and Spain, would be the "islands of resistance" in such an expansionist atmosphere.

And that, friends, spells HISS.

Representative Karl Mundt of South Dakota viewed Mr. Earle's statement as "important". He could not yet have known just how important it would turn out to be.

HISS, friends, HISS.

Mr. Earle thought the only defense to the atom bomb would be to go underground, an impractical solution.

You just have to be prepared to meet Big Ben when the time comes, and pray to Our Lady of Mercy that Ben will have a change of heart and stand down.

"I don't think there is better than an even chance that 10 per cent of us will be alive five years from now," ominously advised Mr. Earle.

You better start doing some fast living, kid. Be All That You Can Be, because you only have five more years in which to be it before the Big Break-Out occurs collectively. And if you were just born, you have a major load of catching up to do in just five years before it's curtains for you and the other 90 percent of the people around you. Tough break.

We hope the ten percent who survive are the nicer ones. If they turn out to be the bad ones, it will quickly work its way down to just a couple or three. And if it turns out to be Ben and Bernice among them... Tough break.

In Dusseldorf, an estimated 100,000 Germans stoned British-occupied buildings and attacked British military vehicles, overturning two and throwing one in a lake, stoning a fourth, in a two-hour demonstration anent the food shortage, being the most violent reaction in the German Ruhr since the days of Hitler. At noon, the crowd dispersed, some marching away in columns.

In Moscow, the Foreign Ministers Council had not yet agreed on the question of how to define German assets in Austria for purposes of reparations claimed by Russia from the German assets in the Eastern occupation zone, and turned the matter over to the Austrian deputies for further study.

In Washington, John L. Lewis proclaimed before a Senate subcommittee that the 111 Centralia, Ill., coal miners who had lost their lives in the Tuesday afternoon explosion at the mine had been "murdered" by Secretary of Interior J. A. Krug for his criminal negligence in not addressing complaints over the mine's safety. He made the statement in the context of asking the Senate not to confirm James Boyd as director of the Bureau of Mines because he had been recommended by Mr. Krug.

Burke Davis reports on a new 11-million dollar bleachery under construction at the Springs Cotton Mills in Lancaster, S.C.

The State Senate passed the 48-million dollar improvements package, including the construction of hospitals and a four-year medical school and teaching hospital at the University. The bill had already been passed by the House. With no right of veto by the Governor, the bill would now become law.

The Senate also passed a House resolution to have the State Supreme Court provide an advisory opinion on the constitutionality of the proposal to raise the pay and expenses of legislators to $6 per diem, after the voters the previous fall had refused to amend the State Constitution's limitation on same.

State Senator Gordon Gray of Winston-Salem charged that the bootleggers were financially assisting the Allied Church League in trying to defeat legislation to hold a referendum on controlled sale in certain counties, including Mecklenburg. He wanted a bill passed to extend lobbyist registration to include propaganda agencies of the sort, to make them accountable publicly on the source of their financing.

In Hollywood, the youngest son, age six, of actor Pat O'Brien, struck his hand through a window while scuffling with his nine-year old brother, having swung and missed. It required seven stitches.

It could have international implications.

In London, the to-do re the hair-do of Paulette Goddard being done by her own Swedish dresser from Hollywood, rather than a British counterpart, prompting the strike of British hairdressers, halting the production of the Goddard movie, "An Ideal Husband", written by Oscar Wilde, had been settled, with hairdressers returning to the job until the grievances could be completely resolved. In the meantime, the Swede would continue to do the lady's hair, like it or not.

That's a relief. It was close to igniting World War III. The Swede is necessary as part of the HISS factor to ward off the Communists.

The Pumpkin told us so out in the Field, just before the Big Ball.

The Charlotte Community Chest Board had been appointed and its membership is provided on the page.

On the editorial page, "On Prohibition and Democracy" tells of the Mecklenburg County dry forces fighting the efforts in the Legislature to hold a referendum in the county on controlled sale of alcohol. They claimed it to be undemocratic. Yet, they supported a bill which would outlaw the sale of wine in 20 counties and allow local authorities to regulate arbitrarily the sale of beer in 29 counties. They also argued that the county option system, which allowed 26 counties to maintain ABC stores, was bad, that the problem should be subject to a statewide referendum, allowing only for a nay vote on alcohol.

The positions obscured the basic question involved in the proposed referendum, to find out whether residents of the county wanted controlled sale or not. It was time, it proposes, to find out.

"Strike for an Innocent Bystander" discusses the bad timing, vis-a-vis the pending restrictive labor legislation in Congress, to have a telephone strike. The union was placing its own interests ahead of those of the public, in the fashion of John L. Lewis. The strike threatened also to spread to the radio industry as a sympathy strike. The radio industry's contract, with its arbitration clause, would be meaningless in that event, as there would be nothing to arbitrate. This latter strike especially would be particularly lacking in public sympathy.

"To List the Propagandists" discusses the efforts in the Legislature to abandon the registration requirement for lobbyists as having accomplished little. The piece suggests that it had in fact accomplished a lot and favors its retention and extension, to include propaganda agencies such as the Ku Klux Klan, the Council of Churches, and the Good Health Association, as a bill by State Senator Gordon Gray of Winston-Salem had proposed.

While finding strange bedfellows within its ambit, it would nevertheless be salutary, producing the desired end of maintaining public awareness of all such organizations and their activities.

A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, "The Problem of the Alcoholic", regards as informative a statement by author James Street of Chapel Hill at a Greensboro meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, counseling that it was one in 85 alcohol consumers who was the chronic user of alcohol. That person would obtain alcohol no matter the strictures placed on it, and it was that person who created the problems associated with alcohol. To punish that user would be ineffective. The proper response was to provide treatment. But to do that, the alcoholic had to want to quit drinking, to realize that using any alcohol would produce the desire for more.

The editorial agrees with the position.

Drew Pearson tells of the Republican caucus of the previous Monday being a success, primarily because Congressman Albert Engel of Michigan, primary opponent of the Knutson tax reduction plan, had not shown up. Mr. Knutson had carefully delineated the finer aspects of the bill to his fellow Republicans, a departure from his high-handed tactics as chairman of the Ways & Means Committee. He claimed it was a bill in support of the wage earner.

Representative Fred Hartley of New Jersey had stated that the labor bill to come from his Labor Committee would likewise be a bill for the workingman.

Representative Karl Mundt of South Dakota urged that the Treasury Department had a secret liaison with the CIO PAC to construct numbers around the tax bill to make it appear to benefit heavily the wealthy while providing little benefit to the average taxpayer. But, he promised, the President would help to clear out the disloyal employees at Treasury falsely reporting such figures, consistent with his general program, agreeing with Republicans, to get rid of disloyal personnel in the Government.

House Majority Leader Charles Halleck of Indiana contended that, consistent with tactics of the White House since the Republican victory in November, the Democrats would seek to derail the tax bill so that the President could propose a similar bill in 1948 and claim political credit for it.

Senator Charles Tobey of New Hampshire, an advocate of continued sugar rationing, and freshman Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, who wanted rationing ended, engaged in a rumble during the caucus. Mr. Tobey accused Senator McCarthy of being the representative of Walter Mack, head of Pesi-Cola, who wanted controls on sugar lifted, had so testified recently to the House Banking & Currency Committee—stating that the American housewife was being deluded on the matter of sugar, prompting the "let them eat candy" idea of Congressman Mike Monroney, as told by Harold Ickes a week earlier.

Senator Tobey said to Senator McCarthy that the primary reason for the Pepsi position was that it had extensive sugar plantations in Cuba and wanted to be able to use for itself all the sugar produced on the plantations with rationing abolished. He found it interesting that the McCarthy bill to deregulate sugar dovetailed perfectly the proposal of Mr. Mack of Pepsi-Cola.

Senator McCarthy countered that Coca-Cola wanted controls maintained so that Pepsi could not utilize its Cuban sugar, that both companies thus had competing selfish interests at stake, something he had pointed out in his report in support of his bill to deregulate.

Mr. Tobey stated in reply that he would advert to the Department of Agriculture figures on sugar, that they demonstrated that rationing was necessary to protect the American consumer against commercial interests, that 95 percent of commercial interests did not object to continued rationing, that the only major sugar user so objecting was Pepsi.

Senator McCarthy rejoined that Senator Tobey was being "unfair". Eventually, after colleagues intervened, the match cooled down.

They undoubtedly relaxed, sat back, and had an ice cold Coca-Cola and Pepsi, respectively.

And the rest, as they say...

Marquis Childs advocates the position supported by Michigan Senator Arthur Vandenberg early in the process of consultation with the President on the program of aid to Greece and Turkey, that the U.N. be notified of the U.S. intentions and that it be requested to maintain jurisdiction over the Greek border dispute while the U.S. administered the aid. Had it been so, he suggests, the country would not be suffering the extant criticism for bypassing the U.N., as if the President were trying to stick a knife into the organization.

He also provides the record of the U.N. during its first twenty months, wherein Russia had ignored or vetoed every attempt by the U.N. special agencies to implement programs approved in the General Assembly or the Economic and Social Council. Thus far, that included Russia not having participated in the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. It had not attended any implementing conference for the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, known as UNESCO. After attending the founding conference of the Food and Agriculture Organization, it had not particpated in any further activities of that group. Nor had Russia participated in the International Civil Aeronautics Organization or the International Labor Organization. It had opposed the International Refugees Organization.

Only with respect to the World Health Organization had Russia taken an active role.

Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson had stated that the U.S. did not continue to support UNRRA, such that it might become a possible source of aid for Greece, because the efforts of UNRRA to supply more aid to Greece had been blocked in the Security Council.

The U.N. was slow in determining matters and so the President's statement on March 12, that the organization was not equipped to act with the celerity necessary to supply aid to Greece by the March 31 deadline of the British for turning off aid, was not misplaced. Thus, Mr. Childs concludes, the criticism that the country had bypassed the U.N. was not well taken, even if the country had to shoulder its share of the blame for the U.N. not being ready to accept such responsibility on short notice.

Samuel Grafton discusses the editorial attempts to name the new Truman aid program to Greece and Turkey. Some had called it the "Truman Doctrine", comparing it to an extended version of the Monroe Doctrine, which it did not in the least resemble. Those so labeling were suggesting that criticism of it, as with the Monroe Doctrine initially, would dissipate within a year or two and the doctrine would be accepted. Mr. Grafton wonders about that.

The Monroe Doctrine had been defensive in nature, to prevent foreign powers from expansion within the Western Hemisphere, designed in its original conception to keep European monarchies out of Latin America. By contrast, the Truman Doctrine aligned the U.S. with the Greek monarchy. The differences were thus highlighted in bold relief.

Senator George Malone of Nevada called the policy one of "containment" of the roughly two billion people who could fall within the totalitarian sphere. He had suggested that the AEC be scrapped and that in its stead an atomic board be instituted under the supervision of Secretary of State Marshall, to give State the equalizer of the atomic bomb in the containment policy against the greater masses. He had obtained two Republican and two Democratic sponsors for his bill proposing that change.

He would also need a Lot of Salt.

Thus, the Truman Doctrine was lending itself to this manner of inflammatory formulation. It came close to setting up as an inevitability a war mentality between the U.S. and the two billion people being contained. It gave the other side justification for using the atom bomb as a threat when it developed one.

But at that point, when another nation did develop the bomb, the policy of containment devolved to an absurdity. Maybe it was not practical to work through the U.N., but it appeared more practical than the Malone Plan and its paranoia with respect to the rest of the world.

A letter writer remarks on the tendency of all Liberals to be branded presently by Conservatives as Communists. He suggests a political litmus test, providing specific questions re current issues, to determine whether a person was Liberal before running for public office. But in answering the questions, he warns, the person should be mindful that not agreeing with either the conservative Democratic position or that of the Republicans would land one squarely within the embrace of Communism.

A letter writer inquires regarding the solution to the puzzle of March 18 in the "Tricky Quickie". She provides the problem, asking on what day a farmer had completed half the work on his barn, in need of roof painting. He completed the job in ten days, having speeded up along the way to produce twice as much work as each preceding day.

The solution provided on March 19, without explanation, was that the job was half completed on the ninth day. The writer disagrees, providing her method, showing that on the tenth day, the farmer would have needed to paint a bit more than on the ninth day to complete work.

Was she right?

First of all, we need to know what type of paint the farmer was using, and whether he had a roller, or whether it was just a spray job.

The editors respond that the solution presented by the reader appeared to demonstrate a flaw in the "Tricky Quickie" logic by at least one brush stroke.

But that would depend entirely on the area of the barn's roof. If it had been a huge, huge barn, such as the size of the Superdome or the Charlotte Coliseum even, then you would need far more paint to complete the extra half part hypothesized by the letter writer than merely that susceptible of loading in one brush stroke. You might need a whole gallon of paint, or a big, big brush, at least on even days, though not on the Big Odd—leading to the conclusion that the farmer should have painted his barn roof in seven days or not at all, bought stainless or aluminum, or just replaced the tin with sheathing and asphalt shingles, though the wood, unless milled from the farmer's trees, was probably not available because of the need for veterans' housing, assuming, of course, that underneath the tin were only joists and perpindicularly placed gapped firring on top of those in the first instance.

You could always just take a small piece of cardboard and block it off in squares until you replicated the puzzle and see what you saw, and whether it was right, both looking at it straight on, as well in the mirror. But would it then be the same refracted through a prism? How about with two slits in the wall and a catcher on the other side?

You might need a Pepsi-Cola to figure that out.

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