Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that in Greenville, S.C., the State rested its case in the trial of the 31 defendants in the lynching of Willie Earle on February 17. The judge refused to allow the prosecution to admit into evidence photographs of Mr. Earle after the lynching. The prosecutor argued that the photographs showed malice by the manner of mutilation of the victim's body. An FBI agent had testified that the defendants' own statements showed that there were six men, including the victim, in the lead taxi, of a procession of taxis, who drove Mr. Earle to the scene of his brutal beating and eventual execution by two shotgun blasts, the latter to his head. Woodrow Wilson Clardy had driven the lead taxi, and the other defendants in it were Carlos Hurd, Sr., implicated as the trigger man in the shooting, Jesse Lee Sammons, Hulbert Carter, and Charles Maurice Covington.

Defense counsel sought directed verdicts based on insufficient evidence having been adduced against certain of the defendants to make a prima facie case on the charged crimes of murder and being accessories after the fact to murder. The judge stated that he would defer ruling until the following Monday. He had not yet ruled on the admissibility of the incriminating statements of 26 of the defendants, the outcome of which would determine his ruling on the motions for directed verdict.

In the trial in Washington of former Congressman Andrew May and the Garsson brothers for fraud and bribery in connection with obtaining war contracts, Mr. May testified the previous day that $7,500 he received from the Garsson brothers was in repayment of a business debt for a loan. He was accused of receiving $55,000 in bribes. Mr. May would continue his testimony on Monday.

In New York, Russia and the United States appeared heading for a showdown in the U.N. Security Council regarding a Slav revolt against maintenance of an international watch in the troubled Balkan frontier. U.S. Deputy Delegate Herschel Johnson of Charlotte interrupted the Yugoslav representative as he criticized the Greek Government, alleging its responsibility for all border incidents along the frontiers with Albania, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria, prompting Andrei Gromyko to exchange sharp words with Mr. Johnson, telling him not to interrupt the Yugoslav delegate. Mr. Johnson stated that he did not intend to have Mr. Gromyko tell him when and how he could speak, prompting Mr. Gromyko to say that Mr. Johnson was not the arbiter. Ultimately, the Yugoslav representative was allowed to continue his statement.

In the Pacific, the U.S.S. Oklahoma, turned upside down by Japanese torpedoes at Pearl Harbor during the 1941 attack and then subsequently raised and refloated, but never returned to operation, sunk for the second and last time, 540 miles from Honolulu, in three-mile deep waters as it was being towed by an Oakland, California, company to drydock. The ship had been listing badly before it succumbed. No crew were aboard at the time. The ship had been launched on March 23, 1914, prior to the outbreak of World War I.

The new Governor of Formosa lifted martial law declared in February after 5,000 people were killed during rioting on the Chinese island.

An earthquake, recorded in the Weston, Mass., and Fordham University seismology laboratories, was placed 8,600 miles from New York, somewhere in the Solomon Islands.

In the remaining telephone strike, 52,000 workers of Southwestern Bell in five states and Michigan Bell agreed to settlement terms. The Southwestern Bell settlement was for an increase of $4.42 per week on average for non-supervisory workers. The Michigan settlement was based on a raise of $3 to $4 per week. Still, the workers were not returning to work because of the continuing Western Electric strike.

In New York, Western Electric negotiations with 6,000 strikers in 24 states reached an impasse. The company had refused to discuss wage increases without a no-strike clause in the new contract.

The President flew to Grandview, Mo., to attend to his 94-year old mother who had taken a turn for the worse while recovering from a broken hip suffered weeks earlier.

J. A. Daly of The News reports that the chairman of the American Yarn & Processing Co. of Charlotte stated that his just finished tour of ten European countries left him with the impression that there was no prospect in the near future for restoring American foreign trade with European business and industry, as the manufacturing base remained in a state of shambles.

In Salisbury, N.C., a man 26 years old died after a fight with another man the previous night at a high school baseball game.

In Lumberton, N.C., the man who had been shot in the chest while sleeping at home by a man hired by his wife stated, after being informed by the Sheriff of the manner of his shooting, that he did not wish to see his wife, out on $15,000 bond, while recuperating in the hospital.

Can't figure that one. Heartless and unforgiving. The little darling was just confused in the manner of demonstration of her affections.

After being shot in the chest the previous Sunday morning, he had raised up and chased the hireling from the bedroom, foiling the plan for a perfect murder. But he also did not die, further foiling the plan.

In Pontiac, Mich., three young men were caught in the midst of a luxury buying spree after one of their number had stolen from his mother $15,000 on April 18, prompting her to attempt suicide. The three young men, ages 22 and 21, were held on charges of carrying concealed weapons. They had but $3,400 remaining of the loot. They were arrested when they returned to Detroit to trade their new car for a bigger model with the intention of then heading to Baltimore and eventually to Florida.

At least it was not on Mother's Day. Every cloud has a silver lining.

In Dijon, France, in the wine cellar of Burgundy's Clos Vougeot vintner estate, producing wine since medieval times, the U.S. Ambassador, Jefferson Cafferty, was required to pledge that he would never cut his wine with water, was thus admitted after so pledging to the Knights Wine-Tasters, Les Chevaliers Du Taste-Vin, one of the most ancient orders in France and memorialized in French song and story. He was to be initiated with the triple invocation of Noah, father of the vine, Bacchus, father of the wine, and St. Vincent, patron of the wine-growers, at which point he would receive a purple ribbon and a silver wine-taster's saucer—which could fly.

But was he required to pledge also not to cut the mustard?

On the editorial page, "Courtesy and the Parking Problem" discusses Mayor Herbert Baxter's plan to give out-of-town parking and minor traffic violators only a warning. It had good things about it, but also drawbacks.

"A Producer on the Price Question" tells of the President's efforts to urge reductions in prices being no more successful than Herbert Hoover's previous efforts years earlier in urging prices to rise. The more practical approach was undertaken in Newburyport, Mass., where the town's merchants banded together to lower prices uniformly by ten percent. But it was also doomed to failure unless the campaign spread nationally, as it had failed to do.

The United Fruit Co. had taken out ads saying that the price it charged for bananas plus freight and handling, as well as the final retail price at the market, were excessive. It wanted consumption increased after public pressure was brought to bear to lower prices. The fact that bananas were highly perishable meant that the company needed to move its stock.

Everyone along the line, from producer to consumer, had a stake in maintaining minimum prices and maximum sales.

They all knew what it was worth.

"An Echo from Another Era" tells of former House Sergeant-at-Arms Kenneth Romney being convicted for maintaining a shortage in the House Bank of $144,000, that it would have provided campaign fodder for the Republicans except for the fact that the shortage began in 1927 when Calvin Coolidge was President. The shortage derived initially from Mr. Romney losing $65,000 in real estate speculation in Florida. He then maintained the books balanced thereafter through a series of bad checks.

A piece from the New York Times, titled "Lynching at the Bar", comments on the trial in Greenville of the 31 accused murderers of Willie Earle. The jailer claimed that, in broad daylight, he did not recognize any of the mob who took Mr. Earle from his custody at gunpoint. That was a traditional see-no-evil reaction.

The piece suggests, as had an editorial earlier in the week in The News, that regardless of the outcome of the case, the fact of the strenuous prosecution made it a red-letter day in South Carolina.

Again, given that which would subsequently transpire in years to come, we have to disagree, with 20-20 hindsight in store.

Drew Pearson tells of former Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen facing 60 freshman Republican Congressmen after his return from Moscow as an observer. Only one question went unanswered, what he thought his chances were for the 1948 Republican nomination for the presidency, which his assistant waved off.

Marquis Childs, in Albany, N.Y., tells of finding the state capital exhibiting the quality of Shangri-La, with Governor Thomas Dewey moving calmly toward his goal of becoming President. Everything which had transpired during the previous seven months made it more likely that he would realize the goal—as he would in Chicago. He had risen rapidly in public opinion polls. The insiders in Washington and New York talked as if it were a foregone conclusion that he would once again become the Republican groom.

Stewart Alsop suggests that if the Truman Doctrine would succeed in containing Soviet expansion, the United States would need employ a new technique for its financial implementation.

A letter writer favors controlled sale of liquor in the upcoming June 14 referendum, indicates that in 50 years, the dry argument had not advanced beyond one of morality, not addressing the issue of failure of enforcement leading to rampant bootlegging under prohibition.

A letter writer states that until the public could be educated anent the dangers of alcohol consumption, nothing would take place to change alcohol abuse, no matter the outcome of the referendum.

A letter from a woman in Jonestown, Miss., comments on the good feelings engendered by the radio program celebrating Mother's Day, concluding with a song by young Margaret O'Brien.

Framed Edition

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