The Charlotte News
Tuesday, May 6, 1947
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Republican leaders in the House had resisted an effort to sidetrack the proposed aid to Greece and Turkey. Secretary of State Marshall had addressed a written appeal to the Congress, indicating the urgency for passage of the 400-million dollar loan package. A floor vote allowed for nine hours of debate on the bill with permissive introduction of amendments.
Senator Robert Taft stated that he would oppose the effort by Senator Joseph Ball of Minnesota to introduce amendments to the Senate labor bill to outlaw industry-wide strikes and the union shop, to make it as stringent as the Hartley bill passed by the House. Senator Taft, sponsor of the bill in the Senate, did support the Ball amendment to ban collective bargaining by national unions in most cases. It was expected that the bill would reach final vote by the end of the week.
The President urged Congress to ratify the four pending Balkan treaties, with Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary and Rumania.
The Navy was in process of developing a 45-foot rocket, the Neptune, capable of carrying a hundred pounds to an altitude of 235 miles and could be fired from a ship. The maximum altitude was twice that of a V-2. The new rocket could lift a ton 84 miles. A small model of the rocket was to be tested during the summer at White Sands, New Mexico—surely the reason, therefore, that the Roswellians will shortly pay a visit. The full-scale version would not be completed until the following February. Ten of the rockets had been ordered for delivery between 1948 and 1951, at a cost of 1.85 million dollars.
In Venice, Italy, a British military court sentenced Field Marshal Albert Kesselring to death by firing squad for war crimes against the Italian people. One of two counts against him alleged that he had been responsible for the deaths of 335 Italians at Adeatine Caves, in reprisal for killing 32 German police troops. Two other officers had also been sentenced to death the previous November for the atrocity. Both sentences were under review.
The President kicked off a national fire prevention conference in Washington, urging Congress to take up his proposal for a national health program. He urged the country to make room for the handicapped in job environments.
A.T.&.T. had made an offer above $3.40 per week in wage increases, $4.04 after benefits, following the Government's proposed $4.50 increase, equating to $5.14 after benefits. The union had accepted the Government proposal.
Workers in five Midwestern states, Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Iowa, and Nebraska, reached a settlement in the telephone strike, accepting increases between $3.50 and $4 per week.
In Chicago a 26-hour dairy strike was settled.
In Philadelphia, the gastroenteritis epidemic claimed its 27th infant victim. Five other infants remained ill. The outbreak had taken place in Allentown.
In New York, a Transit Patrolman became suspicious when he saw three teenagers lugging a pail of pennies onto a subway train at 3:00 a.m. Upon investigation, he elicited from the boys the admissions that they had stolen the pennies, $112 worth, from gum machines after stealing the key from a locker. The two seventeen-year olds were turned over to Adolescent Court while the fifteen-year old was referred to Children's Court.
At least it was not Wednesday, or the penalty might have been considerably more retributive
In Stanford, Ky., a woman gave birth to a 15 pound, 15.5 ounce baby boy. Rumors abounded that he would be named Shoney.
A photograph appears of former North Carolina Senator Robert Rice Reynolds reading a book to his four-year old daughter. The caption informs that resolution of the estate of the recently deceased Evalyn Walsh McLean would determine the disposition of wealth to the heirs. The younger
The Carolina Blue Hope Diamond, owned by the elder Ms. McLean, with its supposedly cursed history dating back to the date Marie Antoinette lost her head with her cake, that being four days, as we have previously elucidated, following the Founding of the First State University of the young nation, explaining the Order of the Golden Fleece, was to be held in trust until 1967.
Whether, incidentallty, close juxtaposition on the page of the photograph of Albert Kesselring to the likeness of the Senator was the result of more than an incidental editorial decision, we leave to the reader to discern.
In Los Angeles, actress Keven McClure, 23, obtained divorce from Lyle Talbot
Also in Los Angeles, actress Katherine York, (probably spelled "Yorke
On the editorial page, "The Governor and the Telephone Strike" finds Governor Gregg Cherry's concern regarding the failure of resolution of the telephone strike to be proper. But the way he had called an end to the strike was quite peculiar, threatening to direct Southern Bell to hire new workers should the existing strikers not return to work by the previous day. The union regarded the action as strike-breaking.
The Governor denied the charge, saying that he wanted the matter referred to an arbitration board while telephone service was resumed. But he had not originally incorporated that desire in his Saturday statement.
The piece finds no authority for the Governor so to act, but if he could end the strike, he probably could also order arbitration. He should do so or he would be perceived as having entered the matter on the side of the company.
"Mr. Stassen and Mr. Stalin" tells of Josef Stalin telling former Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen in Moscow that he was not a propagandist but rather a "businesslike man". He talked at length of the need for cooperation between Russia and the United States. He found no essential difference between the economic system under Hitler and that within the U.S., including imperialism, state monopoly, and oppression of workers.
It appeared to be the mirror to the American perception that there was no difference between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, despite the completely distinct economic systems. But the American saw systems in political terms, whereas the Marxist looked at the world through an economic lens.
Mr. Stassen thought that economic bonds had first to be forged between the two countries, initially by establishing economic cooperation. He agreed with Stalin that there were great tensions presently, but that the two countries could come to live in peaceful coexistence without war. They disagreed, however, over methods to achieve such cooperation.
"Washington's Mad Social Whirl" tells of Representative Fred Bradley of Michigan finding the Washington social scene to be debilitating of Congressional business. Congressmen could find an invitation every evening in the city if they wanted to do so.
The piece finds it confusing as to why Mr. Bradley could not simply refuse private invitations. It wonders whether Democrats had the same active social calendars, now that they were in the minority. The piece suggests that perhaps Mr. Bradley and Republican colleagues might pass an invitation or two to the Democrats.
A piece from the Richmond Times-Dispatch, titled "No Bronze Jeeps, Please", finds the sculptors facing a dilemma as to how to sculpt the new generals, no longer on white chargers. They could have MacArthur striding ashore from a landing craft, Patton squinting through binoculars at the Sicilian shore, or Montgomery on a tank in the African desert. General Eisenhower could be at a desk wearing earphones, one leading to Washington and the other to London.
As to General Patton, there would subsequently appear other methods
Drew Pearson tells of Henry Wallace's sister, married to the Swiss Minister, having commented on her brother's trip abroad, saying that their mother wished he would return home.
Mr. Wallace had observed that England, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark were as firmly opposed to Communism as the United States, but wanted to maintain friendly relations with Russia. European leaders worried that the U.S. was supporting reactionaries in Europe. The French believed that the the U.S. Embassy in Paris was backing General De Gaulle, though Mr. Wallace saw no evidence of the assertion himself. Many Frenchmen believed France to be heading toward civil war, though the British disagreed. The French worried about Russian Communists, not their domestic variety. The French were more vigorous than the British. The best French leaders were former leaders of the underground during the war. Swedes were highly trepidatious of the prospect of war between East and West.
He next provides the latest minutes of the KKK meeting of Klavern No. 1 in Atlanta. Their first order of business was a new card system to try to eliminate Mr. Pearson's spy, giving a number and letter to each member, retained in confidence by the Gligraff of the Klavern. They had announced that if Mr. Pearson, Stetson Kennedy, or one of their agents again infiltrated their ranks, they would be spotted by checking the master number list.
They opposed the return of 5,000 black babies from England to the U.S., born to white wives of American black servicemen. A police officer told of a list of the fathers posted at the Atlanta police station showing that hundreds were fathered by former Governor Ellis Arnall, Drew Pearson, and Governor M. E. Thompson. Some of the membership apparently believed the assertion as they did not laugh at the obvious jest.
They were collecting names of Atlanta teachers who spoke ill of the Klan within the classroom. It was believed that the anti-Klan message was being taught without the approval of the School Board. It was the most important and frightening thing of late to the membership, and they listened with rapt attention, kloaked in krystalline kryptographik konsternation as to how such a thing could take place in America, land of the free white man.
They were not as interested in the Klansman who attacked Henry Wallace.
Marquis Childs begins by asking a question sometimes addressed by Samuel Grafton: what is truth? Russian propagandists had been of late repeating a myth, which had circulated at the Moscow Foreign Ministers Council meeting, that the U.S. had obtained from Germany ten billion dollars worth of reparations, primarily, it was suggested, in patents. But the truth was that the U.S. had obtained no more than 25 million dollars in reparations plus the 150 to 200 million dollars in German assets in U.S. banks.
The patents documents obtained at the end of the war were copied by the U.S., and the other allies were given permission to copy the same patents. The Russians spent several thousand dollars to do so and supplied copies to each of the other allies. So, the U.S. obtained no unique access to patents.
The only thing unique obtained by the country were the knowledge and technical expertise of the scientists and technicians in the American zone of occupation. But that, too, was made available through the Commerce Department to whomever requested it. The Russian firm of Amtorg had copied the information and so it, also, was in the possession of the Russians. But the expertise obtained by the Russians from the Germans was not shared with the U.S.
Mr. Childs concludes by suggesting that it was Hitler who had utilized so effectively the strategy of the big lie to determine truth. It fit the Russian propagandists' insistence regarding the worth of German reparations paid to America.
Stewart Alsop, still in London, comments that little or nothing had changed in the city since 1943. The same bombed-out buildings, drably dressed people in monotone clothes fading into the background against monotone buildings, inedible bread sausages and muddy thick soup, and unwashed windows and unheated houses, all continued to characterize the landscape. The difference was that during the war, the bombed-out shells of buildings had an air of defiant courage about them, whereas now they were simply messy looking. The rest of the drab monotony took on the same air from that which once had been signs of endurance.
The economic problems facing the country after the war, with heavy debts and the need to export goods, required the 3.75 billion dollar loan from the U.S. the previous year. But the cruel fact was that the loan would not bridge the gap.
To hold on reserve enough coal for the ensuing winter, following the harshest winter in over fifty years in England, the Government had limited industries to 65 percent of normal coal usage during the summer months, meaning a partial stoppage of industry, slowing down the production of exports. That would leave a gap of about a billion dollars between imports and exports. The gap could be bridged either by Britons cutting back severely on use of imported goods, or through the U.S. taking on some of England's heaviest economic commitments abroad and providing American backing to England for credit through the World Bank.
He suggests that American opposition to this endeavor would be great, labeling it supportive of the British Empire. If the opposition prevented the American support, the Western effort to contain Russian expansion would be greatly impeded.
To be drab or to be colourful: that was the question.
They could have, however, sent us better cars in the end than that junk from British Leyland. That is why we leaned toward the German imports, despite lingering connotations.
A letter writer finds the woodchucks and termites undermining the mighty oak of the forest, which was "American primacy", with roots
But the real issue was whether, if the mighty oak was finally hewn down by the operands of natural forces acting upon it, anyone would be around to hear the crash.
A letter from A. W. Black finds it disturbing that there was eulogizing of a caricature of "buffonery", in praising Grady Cole, WBT morning radio announcer, as "the friend of the little man".
Framed Edition
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