The Charlotte News
Friday, August 1, 1947
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Maj. General Oliver Echols, Air Corps Material Command chief during the war, had testified to the War Investigating Committee that Elliott Roosevelt had effectively reversed the best experts of the Air Corps during the war and picked a Howard Hughes plane as the best for wartime photo reconnaissance. Had the plane been able to fly at 485 mph, as claimed, it would have been the fastest such plane. Normally, the opposition by the brass would have ended the matter but General Echols had been told to cooperate with the President's son.
Mr. Hughes stated in the Los Angeles Examiner this date that he would demand an investigation of the relationship between Senator Owen Brewster, chairman of the committee, and Pan American Airways. He had asserted earlier in the week that Senator Brewster had conveyed a private offer to call off the hearings if Mr. Hughes would agree to a merger of TWA with Pan Am. He asserted that his "little dog", TWA, had dared step on the toes of the "big dog", Pan Am, and thus the big dog was coming after him.
Mr. Hughes said that he would not "jump through a hoop like a trained seal" to answer demands that he appear in Washington. He said that he had made a firm commitment to appear before the committee on August 6 and did not intend to interrupt his schedule to appear sooner.
The U.S. Marshall informed Senator Homer Ferguson of the committee that he had been unable to serve Mr. Hughes with the committee subpoena.
Andrei Gromyko charged before the U.N. Security Council that the U.S. offer to mediate the dispute between the Indonesians and the Dutch Government, a position accepted by the Government, was designed to bypass the U.N. and would enable the Dutch to have a superior position at the table because of their aggression. Mr. Gromyko advocated that the Security Council immediately take up the matter but proceed slowly on mediation. He suggested that the two sides be ordered to retreat to their positions which they held when the fighting started. U. S. delegate Herschel Johnson contended that there was no intent by the United States to bypass the U.N., that it was simply hoped that the mediation would obviate the need for U.N. action on the matter.
In Britain, it was expected that Prime Minister Clement Attlee would announce deep cuts in the country's food rationing, with the Daily Express and Daily Telegraph, critics of the Labor Government, predicting 25 to 50 percent reductions.
General Jacob Devers, commander of the Army Ground Forces, told an audience at the Newark Airport that the atomic bomb would likely never be used in warfare again. If it were to be used, it would set off an atomic "slugging match" and therefore would likely be avoided as much as gas had been in World War II. He also stated than in future wars, the U.S. could transport a standard infantry division to the front, and that such capability would likely avoid war.
Nancy Brame of The News reports that Col. Legrande Diller, public relations officer and later secretary of the general staff of General MacArthur, had stated that the occupation of Japan was having great success. He said that the Japanese were eager to know of the American way of life and that Christianity was gaining acceptance in Japan. Tokyo was as safe as any American city. The Japanese admired Americans for winning the war. The people were treated better under the American occupation than they had been by the Japanese Government during the war, and so were cooperative. Col. Diller was in Charlotte with his wife to visit his in-laws.
General Motors announced a two to six percent price hike on its passenger cars, effective immediately. The rise in price was said to be necessary because of rising costs for labor and materials, the most recent wage hike the previous April having resulted, according to G.M., in a twelve percent increase in the cost of labor.
In Chicago, the dead body of a three and a half year old boy was found under a porch near his family's home, strangled. He had been missing from his bed since 11:30 the previous night. The District Attorney, who had prosecuted William Heirens, 17-year old University of Chicago student, the previous summer in the death of six-year old Suzanne Degnan in January, 1946, also strangled, said that he would seek a murder indictment against a twice-convicted sex offender who had admitted stealing the child from his bed and then strangling him. The man, Joseph Bortnyak, a factory worker, had been released from prison eleven days earlier from an eleven-month sentence served on a sex offense. He said that he had a terrific urge "to squeeze something", had tried to fight the impulse but had been drinking and gave in to it. He had entered the home through a back door leading from an alley.
In Lillington, N.C., the prosecution rested its case in the murder trial of a farmer accused of killing his wife with a gun. The last of twenty witnesses was the eight year old daughter of the man, who testified that he had told her and her five-year old brother to go out and play prior to the shooting. When she asked him where they should go, he had responded that it did not matter "a damn bit of difference" where they played. She had never seen her father with a gun before and did not witness the shooting. The defendant claimed that the gun discharged accidentally when he sought to grab it from his wife as she was attempting to use it to commit suicide. The defense, unlike a first trial in which he had been convicted, intended this time to present the defendant's testimony.
On the editorial page, "Taking Taft More Seriously" comments that the favorite-son status accorded Senator Robert Taft in Ohio was a beginning for his campaign which would find him touring the West in the fall. Because of his appeal to the Old Guard of the Republican Party with his solid conservatism, he might make more of an impression than had at first been thought, given that he was behind in the popularity polls to Governor Dewey. The guarded approach of Mr. Dewey might find less favor in the long-run than the stands taken in the Senate by Mr. Taft, even if not popular with the people.
As the stop-Dewey movement gained in strength and the Henry Wallace third-party bid became a reality, the stock of Senator Taft might soar, especially as the Republican convention promised to be divided, making it unlikely that Governor Dewey could win on a first ballot.
The one seemingly insurmountable obstacle to Senator Taft was not the labor bill, but rather his isolationism. Yet by 1948, the way to deal with Russia might turn to the Taft position and away from the approach offered by the Marshall Plan.
The editorial asserts that it felt no sense of security, therefore, as Senator Taft began his campaign.
"Russian Problem Isn't Simple" tells of House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Charles Eaton of New Jersey having written in American Magazine a disturbing article in which he recommended reading Russia out of the U.N. or that it be disciplined by the other nations, defeating Russia either by psychology or force of arms.
The stance was troubling because of its source and indicated that many Republicans were not going to go willingly along with the Marshall Plan or continue to go along with the U.N. To follow this policy would lead to war with Russia and wreck the U.N. The position did not consider what the Western allies would think of such a plan or that they could not afford to follow the U.S. down such a path.
It gave cause to believe that the bi-partisan foreign policy would not be strengthened in the campaign year ahead.
"Soviet's Challenge in Recovery" tells of the Molotov Plan in Russia and its satellites making great progress while the West still studied the Marshall Plan. Russia had concluded new trade and credit arrangements with Yugoslavia and had signed an extensive trade pact with Czechoslovakia, extended economic aid to Albania, and made a trade agreement with Hungary. A Polish trade group was negotiating in Moscow and reports were that Poland had made great strides in industrial expansion and improved agricultural conditions.
World Report told of Eastern Europe having more food than at any time since the war. Western Europe, by contrast, was producing less food than the previous year and far less than before the war. Favorable weather and a high yield of Russian grain had given the advantage to Eastern Europe over Western Europe, suffering through a troubled winter and wet spring. But another Soviet advantage came from the Communist system, which forced the people of other lands to work the farms of Russia and its satellites. Time and fear on the part of the West, hesitating to implement an aid plan, had also worked to the Russian advantage.
In a production race in which America fully participated, the outcome would plainly favor the West. There was new urgency to begin the aid program.
Drew Pearson, as promised, assays the freshman Senators, as he had the freshman Representatives the previous Tuesday. Despite an experienced class, with seven former Governors, only four had achieved an A-1 rating, Republicans Irving Ives of New York and Ralph Flanders of Vermont, and Democrats John Sparkman of Alabama, 1952 vice-presidential candidate, and J. Howard McGrath of Rhode Island.
Four of them got a dunce-cap: Democrat Herbert O'Conor of Maryland, and Republicans Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, John W. Bricker of Ohio, and William Jenner of Indiana. The latter three distinguished themselves by being louder and brasher poor performers than some of their colleagues who matched them in performance.
Aside from the four stars mentioned, the scorecard ran: Zales Ecton of Montana, farmer, party hack, D rating; Arthur Watkins, Utah, meek on the floor, garrulous in private, D rating; George Malone of Nevada, somewhat better than average, willing to buck the Republican leadership, C rating; William B. Umstead of North Carolina, future Governor
Marquis Childs discusses the perversion of parts of the G.I. Bill, intended to secure education or training for returning G.I.'s at no cost to the veteran. The on-the-farm training program was one example of an abuse. Returning veterans who had worked on farms prior to entry to service were entering the program for four hours per week just to draw the monthly stipend. V.A. administrator General Omar Bradley thus issued an order to pay the stipend only in proportion to the actual hours spent in training. The farm lobby objected and General Bradley, under directions from the White House, rescinded the order the previous September. Congress, at the close of the recent session, passed a bill requiring the full payment. The program cost 200 million dollars per year, small compared to the nearly 7 billion dollars allocated to veterans programs for the coming fiscal year.
Pilot training was another area of abuse. There was already a glut of pilots from the war, and many of the veterans entering this program merely wanted to know how to fly. This program cost 170 million dollars per year.
Mr. Childs remarks that General Bradley had endured great pressures from special interests and his successor would have to do likewise, which was why the search would likely be long.
Samuel Grafton discusses the failure of the Republican Congress to meet its January goal of cutting six to twelve billion dollars from the President's 37.5 billion dollar proposed budget. The best estimate was that they had pared about two billion from the budget, and that would be eroded by certain items not being counted by the Republicans.
But the failure was not the fault of the Republicans. It was the nature of the beast. It was necessary in the post-war world to stockpile strategic materials, help the veterans, and the former allies. The result left little room in which to make cuts. The Republicans had simply misjudged the world and wound up appearing quite naive. That they had been sincere in believing that they could accomplish the cuts did not excuse them, as it made the original error in judgment appear worse.
It went along with the Republican shout to keep immigration down at a time when relief of displaced persons in Europe would not only benefit humanity but provide a good addition to the labor force. The Republicans were denying that the world had changed, though it was apparent that it had.
Thomas Dewey was following the same tactic of Herbert Hoover in 1928 by being available for speeches but saying little. The times called for a different approach.
The Republicans were making the mistake of standing still while everything else was moving. "Unfortunately that can give you as giddy a feeling as the wildest flipflop or the most freakish stumble."
A letter from the Editor of the Charlotte Eagle, black newspaper, complains of the bad conditions on the black side of both the Southern Railway station and the Union bus terminal in Charlotte. Hundreds of letter, he says, had been received by the newspaper on the matter. The attendants were rude to black passengers and there was inadequate sanitation maintained on the black sides of the facilities. The lunchroom in the train station provided only a bench in the kitchen for black patrons. He reminds that tickets for white and black passengers cost the same and that if a segregated system was to be maintained, it ought be equal as required by law. It was not.
A letter writer favors prosecuting Congressmen for violating the Constitution by not supporting the poll tax ban, the FEPC, the "free-election" law, the universal miltary training bill, and the work-fight-or-go-to-jail bill. Otherwise, there would be a Fascist Government and religion.
A letter writer predicts that it would be a long time before there would be another war, 15 to 40 years, and that it would be with Germany. He wonders at reactionary elements who made inaccurate statements against democracies, allies, FDR, and the fight against German Fascism.
Framed Edition
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