Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that in Cadiz, Spain, an explosion had killed an estimated 400 persons at a naval torpedo plant, spreading to a nearby orphanage with 120 children, a hospital, and a factory with 100 workers. There was no clue to the cause at this point, as the area was too damaged to ascertain the origin. The explosion had taken place at around 10:00 p.m. the previous night.

At the U.N., Andrei Gromyko again attacked the U.S. for bypassing the U.N. in the Dutch-Indonesian matter by offering to mediate the crisis. He asked that a commission be appointed by the Security Council to investigate the matter. The Netherlands Government had accepted the invitation by the U.S., but the Indonesians wanted to impose conditions unacceptable to the United States, prompting Mr. Gromyko to accuse the U.S. of placing coercive pressure on the Indonesians to cooperate.

In Nuremberg, an American war crimes tribunal convicted the personal physician to Hitler, Dr. Karl Brandt, and fourteen other doctors of war crimes associated with fatal experiments on hundreds of thousands of humans in the concentration camps. Seven doctors were acquitted. The convicted defendants would be sentenced the following day.

Another defendant, Helmut Poppendick, was acquitted of war crimes but found guilty of being a member of the S.S.

Senator John Sparkman of Alabama suggested a compromise re the chairmanship of a Joint Senate-House Committee on housing, whereby Senator Charles Tobey of New Hampshire would become chairman and the other contender, Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, would become chairman of a subcommittee. He said that Senator McCarthy was accepting of the compromise.

In Nashville, the Ladies Hermitage Association had denied the "Old Hickory" 30th Infantry Division members free admission and picnic privileges at the Hermitage, the preserved home of Andrew Jackson. The group had sought to hold a reunion on the grounds. Admission was normally free to men in uniform. But the Association thought that the "Old Hickory" members would ruin the grass and flowers. The Nashville Tennessean meanwhile had begun collecting a fund to provide the members their admission fees of 30 cents each, had collected $100. The Association membership was comprised of men, while the officers and directors were women.

In London, William Ennever, the founder of Pelmanism, word associations, such as "cat-saucer", to stimulate memory, had died at 78.

Near Mooresville, N.C., the skeleton of a white man wearing a coat and blue overalls was discovered by a farmer in a wooded area of Iredell County. He and his employee discovered the unidentified skeleton while searching for a stray bull. The skeleton had been in the location, according to authorities, for between six months and one year.

The F.B.I. reported that Charlotte, with 31 murders and non-negligent homicides in 1946, ranked second in the nation in per capita murder rate, behind Knoxville, Tennessee. Killers in Charlotte, reports Burke Davis of The News, typically escaped severe punishment. In the 31 cases of 1946, only two received the death penalty, both white; twelve received jail sentences of varying length; seven were not tried in Superior Court; seven were acquitted; two were slain by peace officers; and one was still at large. Twenty-five of the 31 victims were black. Eight of the defendants were white; four were acquitted and one more was cleared by a lower court.

The accused in a Charlotte homicide in 1946 had a nearly 50-50 chance of going free. The average jail sentence was about ten years. Killing of blacks was viewed in a different light from killing of whites, even if tempered by other factors such as reluctant witnesses in the black community or witnesses who sought to cover for the accused by claiming that the defendant had done everything he could to avoid bloodshed. Liquor, women, and gambling were involved in nearly every case. In one instance, a black man was slain after an argument over a dime, and another was killed over 50 cents won in a pool game. "Smoke", a potent paint thinner, was involved in some of the killings.

In Raleigh, the head of the State Highway Patrol stated that of 600 applicants to the new Patrol school, 450 had court records or bad reputations, thus failing to qualify. The Patrol numbered 322 and was authorized to employ 423.

We hope that they did not ask about early bed-wetting on their applications. If and when you are stopped on the highway, we do not recommend that you ask that question either.

In Florida, a tropical storm which was threatening to become a hurricane, was, according to a scientist, possibly going to dissipate the "red tide" of dead fish and the micro-organism causing them along the Gulf Coast in the area between Venice and Clearwater. South Florida received 50 mph winds from the storm, as it moved then into the Gulf and began to intensify with swirling winds, moving at a rate of eight mph. It was expected to reach hurricane force by the following day.

In Los Angeles, beauty rejuvenation expert Irehne Hobson, 77, was granted a divorce from Count Rudolph Stefenelli, 77, because, she said, he never contributed a dime to the marriage, believed that his title was enough, and showed his wife a list of 33 women who would be happy to marry and support him.

In New York, automatic toy submarines, electric washing machines, and a construction set made of brass and aluminum were among the Christmas toys being offered at the National Toy Show.

In Chicago, Perry Como was singing "Dream, Dream, Dream" on stage at the Chicago Theater, when a member of the audience hit him in the head with hard candy. Mr. Como stopped singing, asked for the house lights to be raised, and invited the hard-candy thrower and his friends to join him on stage for a discussion. No one took the invitation, and Mr. Como resumed his performance. He evidenced a sizable lump on his head from the incident.

On the editorial page, "Forgotten Lesson on Auditorium" tells of the 1946 referendum on building a new auditorium in Charlotte having failed approval because the proposed bond of $750,000 was only for the purchase of land and an architect to design the building. Another bond would have been needed for construction and no one then knew how much the building might cost. There were also other bond measures on the ballot, deemed more pressing than the auditorium, albeit needed in the community.

"Truman Feels the Price Squeeze" favors Attorney General Tom Clark's price-fixing investigation in clothing, housing, and food, as even if, as critics complained, it might have more political motivation than salutary results, it would at least stimulate discussion on high prices and might thus have an ameliorative impact on them.

"Fight for Air Routes Goes On" tells of the need for flights to the west to overcome the barrier of the Appalachian Mountains by land travel. For four or five years, Charlotte had battled to achieve a flight route to the Midwest. Now, Eastern had initiated a flight from Charlotte to Chicago, albeit with several stops, but still an improvement on the former necessity first to fly to Atlanta. Eastern would likely increase its routes if passengers on the new route proved plentiful enough.

A piece from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, titled "Mr. Tobin and a Third Party", discusses Teamsters president Dan Tobin having recently suggested that labor might form a third party in 1948, with a potential strength of 37 million voters. He also said that there was no hope for such a party until labor got behind it.

Robert S. Allen discusses the Grand Jury investigation being conducted secretly in New York by the Justice Department. No one understood precisely the subject matter, but the questions being asked of witnesses betrayed that the interest was in the New Deal. Two Government attorneys were inquiring whether witnesses knew former Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, responsible for the Morgenthau Plan with regard to rebuilding Germany, keeping it agrarian with only enough industry for basic domestic needs. They were also asking whether witnesses knew General "Wild Bill" Donovan, head of the O.S.S. during the war, and Bernard Baruch, author of the U.S. plan for international control of the atomic bomb and formerly a member of the U.N. Atomic Energy Commission. Harry White, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Mr. Morgenthau and conceiver of the World Bank, was also a subject of inquiry.

Paul W. Ward, in the 14th in the series of articles for the Baltimore Sun, collectively titled "Life in the Soviet Union", tells of the fascination of Russian women with the habiliments of American women they saw in Moscow. They viewed with awe more than envy the stylish clothes and accouterments of which they could only dream. Soviet women wore clothing which appeared out of a mail-order house.

Joseph & Stewart Alsop tell of France having at last determined to side with the West rather than fence-straddling between the West and the Soviet Union. The fact promised progress in rebuilding Germany. The U.S. and Britain would desire immediate action on rebuilding Germany at the three-power conference, while France would want to wait until the November conference in London, as in the intervening period the French zone of occupation would be united with the Anglo-American zone in Germany, meaning that the all-important industrial Ruhr, in the British zone originally, would then be within the united zone.

A letter writer comments on the expressed need for new buses from Duke Power, taking the side of the company in believing it was not deliberately depriving the citizenry adequate bus transportation resulting in overcrowding, that the company's claim of loss of substantial money on the bus system appeared to justify its reserve in expanding the system further.

A letter writer, favorable to labor interests, states that predictions of chaos in the wake of passage of Taft-Hartley were unlikely of realization. Such predictions had happened before. Having lived through two world wars and the Depression, he had come to expect chaos. He had first heard chaos predicted when William Jennings Bryan was running for the presidency, and some had then argued that it would occur if he was elected, others, only if he was not. It was probable, he concludes, that chaos would not follow Taft-Hartley.

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