The Charlotte News

Tuesday, July 29, 1947

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the Dutch Army reported that Indonesian sabotage had taken place in oil properties, with fires engulfing four wells in the Peosapo fields, two by sabotage and two ignited by burning grass. Standard Oil reported that the fires were of minor importance.

The Republicans had also cut off the water supply at Salatiga and were sabotaging telephone lines in the area of Semarang.

The Dutch Army reported 50 killed thus far in the fighting and another 86 wounded, with nine missing. Indonesian officials had estimated the Dutch losses at 9,000.

In Brest, France, the day before, twenty were killed and 417 injured in an explosion and fire from a nitrate-laden Norwegian freighter, Ocean Liberty. Most of the dead were dock workers and seamen. One unidentified woman was also listed among the dead. The fire from the blast was still burning.

Henry Kaiser told the War Investigating Committee that he had written a note to FDR, at the direction of the late Marvin McIntyre, the President's secretary, regarding his plan to build small aircraft carriers. The note got the President's attention and caused the Navy brass to reverse their earlier disapproval of the Kaiser plan. He received an order from the Navy for 100 carriers, but later half the order was cancelled when the commanders made it clear they wanted destroyers and not carriers. The aircraft carriers ultimately were credited with helping the U.S. to win the war in the Pacific. Mr. Kaiser, however, said that he knew of no such note which had influenced the President to approve of his plan for a flying transport of 200 tons. He had taken the concept to Donald Douglas, the airplane builder, and Mr. Douglas was enthusiastic about the plane.

The State Department cut back programs so that it could allocate its curtailed funding to expansion of the Voice of America broadcasts to Russia and Eastern Europe. The new broadcast would add thirty minutes each night to the existing hour-long program. The Department, however, had to trim 40 percent of its broadcasts in other languages to meet the budgetary constraints, the Congress having reduced the budget from 8.4 to 6.9 million dollars. Broadcasts would be reduced from 55 to 33 hours per day and Danish and Swedish would be dropped from the 26 languages in which the programs were presently being carried. In addition, Dutch programming would no longer be broadcast to the Netherlands, though it would continue to Indonesia. Broadcasts to Latin America would be severely curtailed, cut in half, to 9 hours per day, mostly in English. Broadcasts to the Far East would be reduced by a third, to six hours.

Field Marshal Viscount Bernard Montgomery was returning to Britain from a meeting with General MacArthur in Japan to advise the Labor Government what military cuts could be made without compromising the nation's defense. It was deemed necessary to cut the 1.3 million-man military force to enable more men for the coal mines and steel industry so that production in the country could be increased as the funds of the previous year's loan from the U.S. ran out.

The UAW Ford council asked permission from the union to strike against Ford by August 4, unless agreement could be reached on a pension plan and for union protection against lawsuits under Taft-Hartley.

In New York, the Vegetarian Party, with a platform of "peace for all time" and a cooperative commonwealth based on the Ten Commandments, had nominated their presidential and vice-presidential candidates for 1948, respectively, Dr. John Maxwell, an 84-year old nutritionist, and Symon Gould.

Seven prisoners escaped from the Rutherford County jail in North Carolina, allegedly assisted by two men who were under arrest. They escaped from the third floor after sawing away bars and letting themselves down by means of a rope made of blankets from the jail. All were awaiting trial. Police were baffled as to how they obtained a hacksaw.

Probably, it came through the bars.

The men were still at large. Be on the lookout and act naturally when you see them.

Three men escaped from the Davie County prison camp the previous night, also by sawing through the bars of their cell. They had already been convicted, remained at large. Be on the lookout.

Get larger bars with more tensile strength.

In Winston-Salem, a group of veterans had formed to urge location of a 1,000-bed neuropsychiatric V.A. hospital in the Twin City. The hospital had been approved the previous Saturday by Congress for location in North Carolina. There was already such a facility, with 921 beds, located in Salisbury, and therefore some groups wanted the hospital located in the Eastern part of the state.

Mayor Herbert Baxter of Charlotte declared that the City's biggest needs were a new auditorium and civic center. He wanted to begin immediate plans for same. Another need, he said, was for improved traffic conditions, as well as downtown restrooms.

The Charlotte Gift Show was about to begin at the Hotel Charlotte and the exhibitors were expected to endorse construction of a planned million-dollar merchandise mart, sponsored by the fashion exhibitors, who had pledged up to $200,000 for the project. The facility would be built in the latter 1950's, next to the new Charlotte Coliseum on Independence Boulevard, the cross-town boulevard which was currently being planned for the city.

A Soap Box Derby racer the previous Thursday had lost his race car during a trial heat when it crashed into the curb, necessitating his first aid. Someone took the car by mistake during his absence and a story in the newspaper had prompted its return. The boy had seen the damaged racer and was told that no one wanted it, that it was abandoned. He did not have a car and so took it. But now all was well and the racer was back where it belonged.

On the sports page, Frank O'Neill of the U.S. Trotting Association tells of Rodney, owned by a Charlottean, the favorite to take the Hambletonian at Goshen, N.Y., the following week. Rodney would only place.

On the editorial page, "No Relief for Mr. Hoover" tells of Senator Owen Brewster of Maine favoring a bill to make former Presidents Senators-at-large, that they might be given some meaningful role in the Government and an adequate pension. The bill was lost in the shuffle in the rush to adjourn, probably, opines the piece, a good thing.

The only living former President at the time was Herbert Hoover, who, without the benefit of a Senate seat, had managed to make his political presence and philosophy well known in the country since leaving office in 1933.

John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, William Howard Taft, and Theodore Roosevelt had also carried on meaningful and important roles after leaving office.

After never being consulted by FDR, resentful of the fact, former President Hoover had been sent to Europe twice by President Truman to study the food situation, and was about to head the commission to modernize the Executive Branch, a matter which promised to occupy his attention for some time.

The best case for a lifetime pension could be made by President Truman, who was said to be set to leave office poor. In any event, it was by no means clear that he would be in a position after 1948 to become an ex-officio Senator.

"Gold in the Vineyards" discusses the fifteen bonded wineries in North Carolina, soon to be consuming thirty million pounds of fruit annually, primarily grapes, but also blackberries, raspberries, youngberries, peaches, and apples. Canneries would also turn fruit into jellies and preserves. It hearkened a new agricultural development in the Carolinas. A Charlotte vintner predicted that the two states would eventually rival California for wine production.

Experts reported than an acre of grapes yielded three times an acre of cotton, though not all net profit, as raising grapes was more expensive and labor intensive.

The Hickory Record had recalled a disastrous experiment in raising raspberries some years earlier. The crop was excellent but the means of preservation was lacking, resulting in a glutted market and collapse of prices.

"Lynchings Can Be Prevented" tells of a report by Tuskegee Institute, stating that six of every seven attempted lynchings were being averted by alert law enforcement. A total of 4,717 lynchings had taken place in the country since 1882. Seventeen had been prevented in the first half of 1947, six in Alabama, one in Georgia, four in Mississippi, and one in North Carolina—the latter being the escape of Buddy Bush in Northampton County in late May, in the immediate wake of the acquittal in Greenville of the 28 defendants in the Willie Earle lynching, having prevented his certain murder at the hands of a mob who had taken him from the jail.

There were also two prevented lynchings in Ohio and one each in Kansas and Massachusetts.

The piece asserts that the prevented lynching seldom received the attention it deserved and the law enforcement responsible for it typically did not get proper credit. The fact that there were so many prevented lynchings showed that the spirit for it still existed. But at least no longer was the act condoned, as it was once nearly universally in the South. The piece finds the development to represent progress.

Yet, public opinion, as demonstrated by the Greenville verdict, did not demand punishment for lynchers. And until convictions equalled the record of prevention, it could not be claimed that the mob spirit of lawlessness had been curbed in the South.

A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled "We Are Still Disfranchised", comments on the one-party system in the South tending to disfranchise as many voters as the poll tax. Yet little criticism was heard of the system.

During the Taft-Hartley vote, liberals in the South saw their votes become meaningless, as conservative and reactionary Democrats from the South voted with the Republican majority for the bill and to override the President's veto. Yet, the conservative Democrats at the same time pledged their continuing support of the President in 1948, and so the conservative voters of the South also had their views nullified.

The result in Washington was that the Southern Democrats amounted to little or nothing in national politics.

Drew Pearson tells again of Leslie Biffle, head of the Democratic Policy Committee, having dared the President the previous week to walk into the Senate chamber and take his old Senate seat unannounced, an unprecedented act in the history of the republic. Earlier, Mr. Biffle had talked the President out of doing so. This time, he was not going to be cajoled or deterred.

As the President walked out of the chamber, Senator Tom Connally shouted after him, "Harry!" Harry!" The President did not hear him and continued to walk, until a doorman shouted at the President, "Hey, Harry, Tom Connally wants to see you." The President turned and met with Senator Connally while the doorman "flushed crimson".

He next provides a scorecard on the new bumper crop of freshman Congressmen. They included: Congressman James Patterson of Connecticut, A-1 record and willing to buck the Republican leadership; John Blainik of Minnesota, as tough in Congress as he had been in the war, parachuting three times behind Tito's lines, operating a fifth column in Yugoslavia against the Germans; Frank Karsten of Missouri, who had learned as much about Congress as many veteran legislators; Jacob Javits of New York, progressive and independent, one of the best operators in Congress; Robert Jones of Alabama, assuming the seat of Senator John Sparkman and continuing in the same vein; John Davis Lodge of Connecticut, former movie actor, brother of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, popular with House leaders because of his regular voting record with Republicans; George Smathers of Florida, future Senator, progressive, Marine hero during the war, a comer; Katherine St. George of New York, intelligent but needed to stop following the voting cues of her predecessor, Hamilton Fish, notorious isolationist; Carl Albert of Oklahoma, future Speaker, who would receive from the House Judiciary Committee the articles of impeachment against President Nixon in July, 1974, Rhodes scholar, served five years in the Army, rising from private to lieutenant colonel, showed promise; Donald Jackson of California, intelligent but needed more grooming; John Carroll of Colorado, A-1 rating; Omar Burleson of Texas, had the respect of his Democratic colleagues for his drive and sincerity, if not always his voting record; Thruston Morton of Kentucky, future Senator, a comer; Glenn Davis of Wisconsin, a savvy legislator.

And, John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts showed the same brilliance as his father, who had been the Ambassador to Great Britain from spring, 1938 through the end of 1940 and previously chaired the Maritime Commission and S.E.C. Mr. Pearson finds the younger Kennedy "steadier" than his father and promising of a "great future".

Among the duds of each party were Democrats John Bell Williams of Mississippi and J. Frank Wilson of Texas, former president of the Dallas Bar Association, and Republican Charles Fletcher of California, along with 15 other Republicans—none of whom you have likely ever heard of unless they happened to represent your home district. Mr. Pearson thinks that the sooner these dead-weighters were sent back home, the better.

There was no mention of another in the freshman class in the House, Richard Nixon of California, busy in HUAC.

Mr. Pearson promises a future column on the Senate freshman class.

Marquis Childs tells of Senator Owen Brewster of Maine being happy about his sideshow, with his War Investigating Committee investigating the "Spruce Goose" of Howard Hughes and Henry Kaiser. It was packed with Hollywood drama and certain to make headlines.

Senator Brewster had long been an advocate for Pan American Airways, rival to Mr. Hughes's TWA for overseas routes. Pan American favored a bill to create a "favored instrument" by which foreign travel could be accomplished, to enable effective competition with foreign airlines. Opponents as Mr. Hughes believed the favored instrument would be Pan Am and so opposed it.

It appeared no coincidence therefore that Senator Brewster's committee happened to be investigating Mr. Hughes. There was a lot of graft and free-spending during the war in awarding contracts. But, Mr. Childs concludes, the whole process should not be saddled by politics, with selective enforcement, as it appeared to be. He favors looking at the whole airline industry, as well at the shipbuilding industry, whose representatives had given away expensive presents, including diamond bracelets at ship launchings, to friends selected to sponsor ships. The Maritime Commission had prepared a list of the recipients. It seemed that would be ripe ground for starting an investigation. Yet, Senator Brewster had not touched the area.

Samuel Grafton finds the scuttlebutt across the country to be that inflation was being paid twice by consumers, first in the price across the counter and then in yet higher prices because of foreign aid producing scarcities. But the Wall Street Journal had reported figures which belied this assumption. Consumption was down, even if overall sales were up because of higher prices. Thus, instead of scarcity, there was abundance of many basic consumer goods, meaning that without foreign trade in these goods, production would inevitably drop and layoffs would result.

The paradox therefore was that America was able to look down upon depressed Europe only because Europe needed to buy American goods to prop up the American economy. Exports were running 15 to 20 billion dollars more per year, but the bulk of it was going to countries in North America, not Europe. Only 224 million dollars worth of food was shipped during May and over a billion dollars worth of manufactured goods. Thus, high food prices could not be blamed on foreign aid or trade.

He concludes that the State Department needed to overcome these myths to avoid impediments in the public mind to implementation of the Marshall Plan, that it was vital not only for Europe's economic, political, and social well-being but also for the economy of the United States.

A letter writer responds to "Senator Taft and Universal Training", and its statement that objections to UMT were only logical when advanced "as part of an argument for renewed international effort to build a peaceful world governed by law and not force."

The writer does not understand why UMT made sense even in a world where rule by force would prevail, as the drafting of young boys would not deter a force such as the Soviet Union from engaging in war.

He is also concerned about how the country expected to survive a nuclear war without adequate preparation for that possibility. He favors dispersal of the populations of large industrial cities such as Detroit and Pittsburgh, which would be likely targets.

A letter writer thanks The News for its support and sponsorship of the Soap Box Derby. He wants to know how the boy who was hurt during the race was getting along.

He also extends congratulations to the winner and assures that he would be back in the race the next year, trying to haul down the prize, racing in the same car, albeit overhauled to achieve a better result.

Streamline her. Get the wind resistance down.

He adds a P.S., that the newspaper's prizes were the best in the state.

The editors report that the only injuries in the race were skinned elbows and knees and all victims were doing fine.

But what about the boy who drove over the 75-foot cliff into the ravine?

A letter from Mother Raphael of Mercy Hospital thanks The News for its support of the first annual drive conducted by the hospital to raise funds, that it could continue to treat all patients regardless of faith.

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