The Charlotte News

Thursday, June 26, 1947

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that AFL president William Green had rejected calls by member unions for a general strike in protest of Taft-Hartley, but asserted that the organization would do everything in its power, including political organization, to fight the measure in the courts and to maintain rights under the bill. He stated that there was no intent, however, to form a PAC as had the CIO to influence elections. But the AFL would work to defeat every member of Congress who had voted for the legislation.

The vice-president of CIO told the Joint Congressional Committee on the Economy that the Congress needed to do something about rising prices if it expected labor to exercise self-restraint on seeking higher wages. The higher cost of living in the face of record profits and consumption of lower income savings, leading to increased consumer credit, were roadsigns, he said, along the way to economic disaster. He criticized the Republican majority for being penny-wise and pound-foolish, to which one Republican member rejoined that he keep politics out of his statement.

Meanwhile, the coal and East Coast Bethlehem shipyard strikes extended to more than 262,000 workers protesting Taft-Hartley. Over half, 220,000, of the coal miners were on strike, now just two days in advance of their planned ten-day annual vacation, starting at the end of Friday.

In Moscow, Tass called Taft-Hartley a step toward Fascism.

The President vetoed the wool price support bill, which permitted raising of the tariff on wool imports, for its adverse impact on international relations. The bill had caused New Zealand and Australia to exit the Geneva international trade conference and had appeared as double-dealing, with the U.S. taking the lead at the conference to urge reduction of trade barriers internationally. He called the measure a first step on the "road to economic isolationism."

Lt. General Hoyt Vandenberg, deputy commander of the Army Air Forces, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the U.S. intended to provide other American nations with aircraft if the Congress approved the plan for standardization of arms in the Western Hemisphere. The arms would be sold, not loaned, in most cases. He declared that the U.S. was vulnerable from air attack in almost every direction. He said that bases in the Americas outside the country should be operated by the native countries on whose soil the bases were located but that they should be equipped to enable quick use by American forces when needed "to succor other countries."

We assume they quoted him with correct orthography in play.

House Appropriations Committee chairman John Taber of New York said that an investigation into the Federal Housing Administration had shown shocking waste and inefficiency, especially in the San Francisco regional office, where, he added, numerous Communists were on the payroll. In New Jersey, a CIO official with "Communist affections" offered $5 each for 500 homes which coast $5,000 each and told the Government that either his cooperative would get them or the tenants would go on strike and refuse to move or pay rent to the Government. He claimed that collusion was also discovered in awarding of Federal housing construction contracts, with kickbacks and exorbitant costs.

In an address to the first graduating class of the Armed Forces' Industrial College in Washington, Bernard Baruch urged that a "work or fight" law be passed by Congress in conjunction with universal military training to enable constant preparation for the next war. He also stated that he foresaw no war with Russia, but that the new technology afforded no time for preparation for war as in the past. He also urged surveys to be conducted for underground facilities to afford places of refuge for civilians and dispersal of populations. Mr. Baruch had recently left the U.N. Atomic Energy Commission as the U.S. representative.

In Des Moines, the Des Moines and Raccoon Rivers flooded, displacing 1,800 persons after a two-block breach of the levee flooded a 30-block area. Two persons were missing. Earlier June floods in Iowa had caused an estimated 107 million dollars worth of damage, most of which was in the loss of 102 million dollars worth of topsoil covering five million acres of sloping land and 600,000 acres of bottomland.

In Washington, a Federal District Court Judge refused to suspend the 6 to 18-month sentence for mail fraud imposed against Mayor James Curley of Boston and ordered him to begin serving the sentence. Mayor Curley, age 72, called it a death sentence.

In Jackson, N.C., the black man accused of raping a white woman in April and burglarizing her home was found guilty of the burglary of a residence at nighttime with intent to commit rape and sentenced by the court to death—a discretionary sentence on the burglary count, automatic, had he been convicted of the rape. He was scheduled to testify against an accomplice who faced the same charges, albeit as an accessory.

That was some plea bargain. Guess the co-defendant's counsel could not easily suggest that the principal defendant was coerced to testify in some way.

In the second case, seven black jurors were challenged by the State and nine women were excused from the jury when they professed to have opinions already formed on the matter. The final jury was comprised of ten farmers and two textile workers.

And the judge had already advised the Grand Jury at the beginning of the week, when the indictment against the defendant was handed down, that it was too bad so much publicity across the country was provided lynchings or attempted lynchings in the South, as in the late May attempted lynching out of Jackson in the immediate wake of the acquittal in Greenville, S.C., of the 28 defendants for the lynching of Willie Earle, compared to that attendant ordinary murders and rapes.

It looks as if it was not these fellows' day.

The systematic exclusion by the prosecution of black jurors in a case involving a black defendant and a white victim, as apparently taking place in the second case, would no longer be permitted today, except under extraordinary circumstances, failing which would be considered grounds for reversal if the judge permitted such a jury finally to be seated. Once such a challenge by the defense counsel for discrimination is raised during the course of selection, the prosecution then has the burden to justify its exercise of peremptory challenges by reference to particulars elicited during voir dire or other observations made by the prosecution which suggest a particular juror showed bias, lack of attention, or lack of ability otherwise to serve, beyond the mere fact of their race, and that similar bases were being exercised to exclude white jurors.

The convicted and sentenced defendant gave notice of appeal, delaying execution of his sentence until at least the fall when the State Supreme Court would convene on September 18. He would be put to death in the gas chamber on October 3, 1947. His co-defendant did not suffer the same fate.

Both defendants were "plumber's helpers", says the piece.

That could be a dark joke, son.

In Atlanta, a pickup truck with the words "plumbing, heating and metal service" painted on each door, was found parked with a woman's body in the back, covered by a green quilt, her hands tied. The truck was traced to a woman in Indiana whose son had reported his wife missing the previous day, saying that she had driven the truck from their home in Athens to Atlanta but had not returned. Witnesses said that a man had gotten out of the truck containing the woman's body and walked away. A man who worked nearby had seen blood dripping from the truck bed and alerted police. The police described it as a sex crime.

In Greenwood, S.C., a winner of the Distinguished Service Cross for bravery in action against the Japanese during the war was on trial for the murder of his wife on May 30. He admitted on the witness stand having the gun in his hand which fired the fatal shot, but claimed it was accidental, that he had just kissed his wife when she told him to put up that "damn gun", reached for it and it went off. He could not recall how the gun was positioned when she grabbed at it. Neighbors who arrived right after the shooting said that he was bending over his wife with her head in his lap and appeared to be kissing her.

That was some kiss.

In Carthage, Mo., a woman, tried for the murder of her six-week old son in January, was acquitted by a jury after 35 minutes of deliberation. She had contended that her husband had fired three shots into the infant. Her husband was not on trial. Prosecutors had introduced three confessions to the slaying by the defendant. She said that she may have made those statements but did not recall them.

Beware, infants, should your parents suddenly start perusing brochures advertising housing in Carthage, Mo.

On the editorial page, "Life Among the Disfranchised", relates that 17 of 20 Democrats who had voted to override the President's veto of Taft-Hartley had been Southerners. Among Southern Senators, only Claude Pepper of Florida, Olin Johnston of South Carolina, Lister Hill of Alabama, and John Sparkman of Alabama had voted to sustain.

The Southerners had acted in accord with most of their constituents, but it raised again the question of what the Democratic label in the South really meant. It appeared that it was in complete disagreement with the national party. Yet, the Southerners in Congress had told the President, according Drew Pearson, that they stood four-square in his corner and would support him in 1948—until, that is, the specter arose of a civil rights plank in the Democratic platform leading the Dixiecrats, led by Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, to depart from the party convention.

For the nonce, it appeared that the South would vote for the President, even though apparently wishing to lay waste his program, leading on to another four years of the same dichotomous profession of support while voting in the other direction. The pattern, opines the piece, had disfranchised the South, liberal and conservative alike.

Be careful, piece, of that for which you wish. It may not be much of an improvement. It may be worse, much worse—even if leading to a Pulitzer Prize for journalism in 1958.

"Five Stars for Omar Bradley" finds it altogether fitting that V.A. Administrator Omar Bradley, who had distinguished himself so well in both the North African and Normandy campaigns during the war, especially turning back the German bulge at Bastogne, would likely receive his fifth star as a General and succeed General Eisenhower as Chief of Staff of the Army. It would serve as a belated expression of appreciation from the people for General Bradley's services.

General Bradley would so become Chief of Staf and in 1949 became the first official head of the Joint Chiefs after merger of the Army and Navy into the Department of the Defense.

"Whereas, the Mayor Is Willing..." reports of the Mayor of Huntington, W. Va., telling all organizations in the town that he would no longer issue proclamations for this or that unless in a special, deserving case. Governor Tuck of Virginia had tried the same strategy, but found himself giving in shortly afterward, proclaiming "Family Week" and "Home Demonstration Week".

It was fitting, it thinks, therefore to remind readers that the seeming pictorial diary in the newspaper of Mayor Herbert Baxter's various promotional declarations in the City of Charlotte was not a function of the newspaper's efforts, but rather the Mayor's determination to bring needed publicity to worthy causes. The newspaper believed it to be part of its responsibility to report on same.

A piece from the Asheville Citizen, titled "Tar Heel Presidents Three", remarks of the commissioning of sculptor Charles Keck—who recently, according to Drew Pearson, had presented a bust of the President to Mr. Truman, with comments by the latter regarding absence of his glasses and seeking to fit his own pair upon the bust—to fashion the statues of the three Presidents claimed to be North Carolina natives, Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, and Andrew Johnson, to be situated on Capitol Square in Raleigh. He had already sculpted a statue of Governor William B. Aycock for the national Rotunda. He had also won acclaim for his sculpture of Lewis and Clark, situated in Charlottesville.

Mr. Keck had presented his models for the statues and had them approved in Raleigh. The piece thinks it a good move and a good choice of sculptor.

A piece from the Raleigh News & Observer discusses the chances of gubernatorial candidate R. Mayne Albright, who was running as a progressive Democrat. A veteran, he was under 40 and so had the odds stacked against him. The other two announced candidates, Oscar Barker and Charles Johnson, were both in their mid-fifties.

In the past, O. Max Gardner—eventually Governor and Ambassador to Britain, before passing away suddenly the previous February as he departed to enter service at the Court of St. James—was 38 when he had run for Governor the first time, in 1920, and lost. Dr. Ralph McDonald had run in 1936 at age 32 and lost to Clyde Hoey, 59 at the time. In 1944, Dr. McDonald had run again against Gregg Cherry and lost again.

The average age of the Governor in North Carolina thus far in the Twentieth Century had been a bit over 49. Half the Governors had been between 50 and 54. Since 1921, only Governor Gardner, at age 46, had become Governor at a younger age than 50. Thomas Bickett, at age 48, had become Governor in 1917. Since the turn of the century, only two other Governors had been under 50 when elected to office.

In the 19th Century, three Governors under age 50 had been elected, Governors Zebulon Vance, D. L. Swain, both 32, and R.D. Spaight, Jr., 39, the latter two chosen by the Legislature, the change to popular voting for Governors not having taken place until 1836.

The next Governor, in 1949, would be Kerr Scott, age 52. Not until the election of 1960 would North Carolina again have a Governor in his 40's. Terry Sanford was 43 at the time he took office in 1961, just three months younger than President Kennedy, and the youngest Governor of the state since Governors W. W. Kitchin, 42, 1909-13, Charles B. Aycock, 41, 1901-05, and Governor Vance, elected a century earlier in 1861.

Governor Vance, incidentally, as do most of the other Governors prior to Governor Hoey, with whom the cleping for Governors ceased, has his name appended to a building on the UNC campus, the Vance portion of Battle-Vance-Pettigrew, the successive names of the three nearly adjoining buildings of like architecture being, no doubt, of a symbolic, poetic source, for their stance as the first buildings to greet the visitor off Franklin Street to the western side of the green, with General Pettigrew, a University graduate of some scholarly renown, having led the left flank in Pickett's charge on July 3, 1863.

That does not mean that the University stands for the Confederacy, though when the building was so yclept in 1920, it may have been the case in the minds of some on whose philanthropy the University found itself dependent and thus constrained to name buildings in the manner on which gifts were conditioned. It is a gentle reminder of the Southern past, however, and that the University, for all its liberality and advancement, remains situate in the South, historically and into modernity.

Again, as we have once before mentioned, it is one of those things which one ponders in passing as a freshman preparing to do battle for the first time with Achilles on a frosty Sunday morning over breakfast at Hector's, once famous since 1969.

And we slew Achilles that December, dragged him all around campus and left him for dead. Or maybe it was the other way about. We did not take Greek or mythology, save in high school and a dabbling here and there in philosophy.

Drew Pearson tells of Henry Wallace having made an effort at reconciliation with President Truman just before making his speech at the Watergate Amphitheater the previous week. He had a paragraph in his speech which offered his services to the President or Secretary of State Marshall to go to Russia to effect rapprochement. But before he made the offer, he sent his chief adviser to consult with the White House. Word came back that the President's reaction was that he would not send the son-of-a-bitch anyplace. Mr. Wallace promptly took out the paragraph, despite advisers telling him to leave it in.

He next relates of miscellaneous items, including the fact that Congressman Fred Hartley of New Jersey, co-sponsor of Taft-Hartley, had been at one point promised $10,000 by the National Dry Goods Association for killing price control.

Senator Claude Pepper of Florida suggested that the overriding of the veto on Taft-Hartley marked the beginning of a permanent cleavage between the liberals and conservatives of both parties, and might serve as a foundational element to a third party movement. He, himself, assured, however, that he would not join a third party.

Navy Secretary James Forrestal and Commerce Secretary Averell Harriman, both Wall Street bankers, had fought harder than anyone else in the Cabinet to convince the President not to veto the labor bill.

At a secret White House meeting, UMW chieftain John L. Lewis had promised to convince Republican Senator Sherman Cooper and West Virginia Senator Chapman Revercomb to sustain the veto if the President delivered one. Mr. Lewis popped out.

Had he scored the runs, with the return of Senator Wagner and Senator Elbert Thomas, both of whom were absent at the vote and had intended to vote to sustain the veto, the vote still would have been insufficient to sustain, at 66 to 29, three more changed votes being needed.

Other labor leaders vowed that unless the bill were vetoed, labor would not turn out to vote in 1948.

Hollywood's chief censor, Eric Johnston, had just departed for Europe to try to obtain cooperation from the Russians on moompicters. In Czechoslovakia, the Russians had forced the Czechs to show 60 percent Russian films. Hollywood had eclectically selected fare for the Czechs, including "Wilson", "Abraham Lincoln in Illinois", and other such historiographies. The result was that the Czechs demanded to see the American films to the exclusion of the more ponderous Russian palette. The Russians reacted by demanding that the Czechs make their own films, using Russian money and personnel, in the hope of displacing all foreign celluloid.

Yet, many members of the GOP wanted the State Department restricted from sending American films abroad.

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek had sent an urgent message to Secretary Marshall seeking aid, that the country otherwise was in danger of being overrun by the Communists. General Marshall was not biting.

Marquis Childs suggests that the country was forgetting the lessons of the war after two years, lapsing into a dream of the past. The country had learned in the war the value of continuing scientific research and development and the folly of the draft policy, drafting young men in the midst of their education, who would have gone into the endeavor of science and research. Shortly after V-J Day, the emphasis was placed on making up for these lost four years and stressing replenishment of these endeavors. But disagreement followed regarding how the money was to be allocated and how much appropriated.

Whether patents produced pursuant to war contracts with the Government were to be shared publicly or were to be retained by the corporations who produced them became a central question, as after World War I. Senator Harley Kilgore and other liberal Democrats wanted them shared while conservatives believed that it would destroy incentive, and so championed free enterprise, that the patents should be retained. A year earlier, a science bill wound up stuck in a House committee with the Kilgore patent provision intact, approved by the Senate. Presently, another similar bill appeared headed along the same route. Its opposition stemmed from the National Academy of Sciences, an ultra-conservative organization, which favored private, not public, contribution of money to support science. But such funding would only be dilatory of progress. The real issue was fear of Government interference and control.

He urges that the time had come to learn one small lesson from the war, that backing for science, even as a relatively small appropriation of 20 million dollars, as in the current Senate bill, was necessary for national security.

Samuel Grafton discusses the period to follow the Taft-Hartley bill becoming law, establishing an arm's length bargaining paradigm with labor, to be administered by the courts and the NLRB, with its general counsel able to trump all Board decisions by determining unilaterally in advance which cases the Board would hear. Congress was going to insure that the appointee of the President to this position would not be liberal or sympathetic to labor. So, Taft-Hartley was going to be a long-term conflict, establishing a mood which might last twenty years and darken a generation.

Some of its provisions, as the ban on the closed shop, allowing only a union shop when a majority of workers voted to have it, and the ability of employers to keep unions in the courts perpetually, were plainly punitive for labor having extended too far its power achieved under the Wagner Act.

This lingering effect through time was its worst aspect. Out of it could come a third party movement which could have lasting impact on the politics of the country. And it was a sign of political immaturity to alienate labor in a period of world crisis where the rest of the world depended on American production for renascence. The lovers of democracy in the country would look for a palliative for the divisiveness thus wrought.

A letter waxes Biblical in parody of the plight of man. Sample: "In his childhood, he eateth green apples and is run over with worms and suffereth with the tummy ache. In his old age...[a] thief stealeth his automobile and his wife's affections. The liquor removeth all his teeth, the most of his innards and his bank roll...

"Woe unto man from the day of his birth till the earth knoweth him no more. He was made of dust but, lo, his name is mud now."

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