The Charlotte News
Wednesday, September 10, 1947
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Secretary of State Marshall stated to a press conference that Europe was in need of emergency aid from the United States before the end of the year. He did not render an opinion as to whether a special session of Congress should thus be convened. He had not made up his mind on details and would not state how much aid would be required immediately.
He also stated that the United States had, without effect, pleaded with the British not to deport the Jews in the "Exodus, 1947" from Palestine to Germany. The State Department understood the likelihood of problems to be encountered in the attempt to remove the Jews from the ships in Hamburg.
Fifty Jewish refugees from the "Exodus 1947" ships were under arrest for unstated charges, while a search was taking place for suspects who had placed a bomb aboard one of the three ships, the Empire Rival, the passengers from which had disembarked peaceably, the only one of the three ships not to suffer a disturbance in the deboarding process. The remainder of the 4,311 passengers were now in displaced persons camps.
In New Delhi, a thousand people had been killed in four days of communal riots, prompting deployment of troops by Prime Minister Nehru. Refugee camps were believed to be the source of the gangs of killers who attacked numerous persons at the Old Delhi railway station. But Government raiding parties of one such camp found it nearly deserted and residents of a second camp expecting the arrival of the troops. Fighting continued between Hindu-Sikhs and Moslems in the month-old dominion.
Andrei Gromyko, in speaking out against the proposed second report of the U.N. Atomic Energy Commission, stated that the U.S. was seeking to undermine any possibility of agreement on international control of atomic energy and trying to establish a worldwide monopoly on atomic energy at the expense of other nations.
Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin suggested before the House-Senate Committee on Housing that cuts be made in the profits derived from building materials to stimulate construction of housing. Building materials, according to witnesses, were up 77 percent over 1927 prices, with lumber prices at 169 percent. He said that some large builders were having to pay middle men, lumber wholesalers and retailers, through whose hands the lumber never passed. It was from these men that the proposed cuts in profits could occur, by simply cutting them out of the process.
The AFL executive council stated that a third round of post-war wage hike demands could ensue should the cost of living continue to rise. The first had produced an average increase of 18.5 cents per hour, and the second, 15.5 cents. The council favored limiting aid under the Marshall Plan to those nations willing to preserve the peace, encouraging production, and expanding transportation facilities to accommodate the increased product. Shortage of railroad cars was the chief problem in transportation.
The St. Louis Star-Times protested with an open letter to the St. Louis Postmaster, after he had informed the newspaper that it was in violation of statutes forbidding postal fraud for its publication of a story about the Ahoskie, N.C., Kiwanians who had awarded a lottery prize of an additional Cadillac to a black man after first denying him the prize because of his race and awarding the first Cadillac instead to a white contestant. The newspaper pointed out that the story was carried on radio and by newspapers all over the nation, that the Postmaster's decision that he would not have mailed the newspaper had he been aware of the story thus was nonsensical and a violation of the First Amendment.
In the New York wholesale markets, butter and eggs reached new highs in prices, at 90 cents per pound and 80 to 90 cents per dozen respectively, and the price of wheat continued to rise, along with lard and soybeans. Cheese remained firm. Corn and oats reached record highs in Chicago.
Somebody ought prosecute those butter and eggs rackets.
In Port Elizabeth in South Africa, wool prices were 50 percent higher than a year earlier, at 60 cents per pound, meaning that print clothing prices would likely rise.
The president of Pillsbury, Mr. Pillsbury, stated that record high wheat production would offset the drought-reduced corn crop, to enable feed for farm animals, but that every bit of wheat for them meant less grist for the mill to produce flour. The continuing demand for grain abroad and the boxcar shortage also contributed to limit the flour supply.
Duke Power announced two new projects, expansion of the Cliffside plant in Shelby, to bring 120,000 kilowatt hours of steam-generated electricity to the plant, and construction of a new plant on the Dan River near Leakesville.
Dick Young of The News tells of conflict being anticipated at the Charlotte City Council meeting regarding alternative plans to be submitted for resolving the conflict between the National Guard and the Teenage Club on use of the Charlotte Armory-Auditorium for meetings.
You'll not want to miss the excitement.
Jonathan Daniels of the Raleigh News and Observer praises News Editor William Reddig for his new book, Tom's Town, anent the Tom Pendergast political machine in Kansas City which had given Harry Truman his start in politics in the 1920's, Mr. Pendergast having urged him to run for the Senate in 1934. Mr. Reddig had joined The News July 22 after having been at the Kansas City Star for two decades.
Mr. Daniels states that the change of career venue might suggest a concern by Mr. Reddig that he might otherwise be given a quick ride out of town on a rail. But the truth was that the book was being celebrated as a nostalgic look at the era of machine politics for its having related authentically and accurately of Tom Pendergast and his town, "making both seem lustily disreputable and warmly appealing at the same time."
It was an important exegesis of the spirit of America, which demanded Puritanism while preferring decadence.
If front page, center placement of the review seems to have been a little too self-promoting, we must recall both the higher prices of 1947 and the continuing lag in the salaries of white collar professionals, not benefited by collective bargaining.
On the editorial page, "America's Stake in the Ruhr" discusses the need for revival of steel and coal production in the Ruhr as key to rehabilitation of Europe, as being discussed by Britain, France, and the U.S., the matter having stalled because of disagreement over the level of free enterprise to be allowed within the Ruhr, France and Britain favoring controlled production to limit the potential industrial growth of Germany. European socialists wanted to internationalize the Ruhr for the benefit of all Western Europe, based on the European trend being a mix of socialism and private enterprise. They argued that an effort to create a capitalist Europe with Germany at its center would only strengthen the Communist movement.
The U.S. would have to show more firmness than it had if it was to enable the Ruhr to rescue Europe from its economic crisis. The decision on how to proceed in the vital region could not any longer be delayed.
"Tough Job for an Educator" discusses a piece appearing in the New York Times Magazine, by former Vanderbilt president Dr. O. C. Carmichael, in which he had suggested that college administrators had to have several attributes to succeed, including business acumen, honesty, alertness, courage, the ability to work with people, and a sound philosophy of education.
The editorial suggests that Dr. Frank Porter Graham, UNC president, might add, given the recent controversy regarding a Communist group being allowed to exist on campus and prompting some to favor his ouster, that the college president must remain aloof in his ivory tower and constantly be vigilant of the horizon for any errant faculty member or student who might present an unpopular or unusual idea.
Dr. Graham, beginning his 18th year as president of the University, had proven his abilities and virtues described by Dr. Carmichael as requisite for the position. He had enabled the University to become a symbol of enlightened and liberal thought. That he had not been purged for permitting expression of unpopular beliefs suggested the degree of enlightenment which he had fostered in the state. The result proved that his ideas were not so dangerous as critics had suggested.
"Why Keep the Industrial Home?" concludes that the Charlotte reform school for wayward girls was really a laundry and not an institution for reclaiming troubled lives, that it was expensive and ill-equipped to perform its delegated task, that the intent of the late Judge Heriot Clarkson, whose vision it was, had never been realized, so should be jettisoned. It was the only such county facility remaining in the state.
It favors the State operating such a facility, not the County. The State had experimented with such a farm years earlier, but had to close it, despite success, because of its cost.
The two matrons in charge of the Home were not properly trained—their last resort being apparently to analogize to cats to establish the limits of punitive action to be exacted against human beings.
If the Home were to be continued, it suggests, then some form of investigation of the background of the inmates should take place and some form of therapy set up—other than saucers of milk slipped under the door at dinner time.
A piece from the Washington Post, titled "Lynch Prosecutions", tells of North Carolina being determined to treat lynching as a crime, with the re-submission of the case against the seven white men accused of the attempted lynching on May 23 of Buddy Bush in Jackson to a committing magistrate to determine probable cause to submit the matter again to a Grand Jury of a neighboring county, pursuant to North Carolina's 1893 anti-lynching law, that following the original presentment to the Grand Jury by the Solicitor of Northampton County having failed to obtain indictments. The piece suggests that it might encounter the same "stone wall of local prejudice" which had resulted in acquittals by a jury of 28 defendants in Greenville, S.C., for their admitted lynching of Willie Earle, an acquittal occurring just before the Bush incident.
The magistrate had already found insufficient evidence to commit six of the seven defendants on the basis that a confession by one of them made to an FBI agent was inadmissible against the other co-defendants, leaving, without positive identification of the others, no evidence to associate them with the crime, the jailer having seen nothing, and his wife, having been asleep upstairs.
Thus only the confessed leader of the lynch mob was bound over to the Grand Jury, but along with the jailer, charged with conspiracy in the matter for his kuklos part. The latter charge could provide jurisdiction to the Justice Department to intervene under the civil rights statute—which at the time only allowed for limited sentences in prison, even where the violation of civil rights included deprivation of life. But, it adds, such intervention appeared unlikely to be required as the magistrate was addressing the matter with the seriousness it deserved.
The jailer had cooperated, allegedly out of fear, despite there being no threat to him personally by the men wielding guns. He had admittedly led the men to the cell of Mr. Bush, pointed him out, and had never sought to convince the men to refrain from their action. The magistrate referenced these problems as the basis for holding the jailer to answer, a result which the magistrate expressed as the only way to preserve his own "self-respect".
The editorial finds it the best remedy for lynching, following the laws already on the books. For it was the State which could best address these issues. The example thus set, it offers, was salutary. It hopes that the end result would be equally so.
Drew Pearson reports that the inside fact was that Senator Arthur Vandenberg and other GOP leaders had demanded that Senator Owen Brewster again call Howard Hughes to testify regarding his war contracts when the War Investigating Committee reconvened in early November. They were concerned that the backfire in public opinion engendered thus far by the probe would be costly in the 1948 elections and wanted to remove the taint. Senator Brewster had assured that further hearings would occur after Senator Homer Ferguson, chairman of the subcommittee which handled the probe, returned from the fact-finding trip to Europe. Meanwhile, investigators were trying to find more dirt on Mr. Hughes.
He notes that Democratic leaders were quietly trying to find more on connections between Senator Brewster and Pan American Airways and its head, Juan Trippe
Josef Stalin was not making the same mistake as Hitler in trusting his generals, and, to that end, the Russian general staff had been thoroughly dispersed, the preservation of which intact had ultimately been the undoing of the Fuehrer, leading to the July, 1944 plot to assassinate him in Der Fuehrerbunker.
The Politburo had made sure that any generals achieving too much power were either transferred to distant posts—perhaps within a binocular's throw of Alaska—or liquidated. Prior to the war, seven high-ranking generals had been executed. Marshal Zhukov, hero of Berlin, had been transferred to an obscure command post in Odessa.
Senator Taft had inadvertently aroused the anger of Western neighbors of California, who regarded California as the neighborhood bully, when he took a plane tour over the Colorado River at the behest of the Colorado River Board of California. The neighboring states believed California had helped itself to the waters of the Colorado for irrigation of its farm lands, at the expense of the neighboring states. Senator William Knowland had enabled the trip of Senator Taft. When Senator Taft's staff realized the political error, they invited the Arizona board to travel with the entourage. Novelist Clarence Buddington Kelland
Mr. Pearson also notes that Senator Taft committed a faux pas in saying that he would visit during his tour the Boulder Dam, renamed the Hoover Dam in the 80th Congress, with the backing of Senator Taft.
U.S. monetary officials were upset with Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin's remark suggesting that the U.S. place its gold reserves into the world pool of commerce. They reminded that the British had a habit of selling the same commodities redundantly.
Most of the gold bought by the U.S. came from South America, and if the buying ceased, the British Empire gold mines would have no trading partner. Having sold the gold to the U.S., the British wanted it returned, which, in turn, would lead to selling it again to the U.S., it being one of the few countries in which they could exchange gold for goods.
The Empire trading preference, by which England gave to members of the Empire lower tariff rates than to other countries, had been effectively purchased by the United States for 26 billion dollars in lend-lease. Then the British complained that they could no longer afford the provision after the war, and the 3.75 billion dollar loan of the U.S. was then made on the contingency that the preference would again be abolished. At the recent Geneva trade conference, the British had again complained that they could not afford abolition of the preference, and they intended to have the U.S. again buy it back through aid under the Marshall Plan.
J. Edgar Hoover had assigned several agents to track down price-fixers in the areas of food, clothing, and housing, pursuant to the campaign against it announced recently by Attorney General Tom Clark. The agents had discovered that some industries were maintaining false records of their meetings to hide price-fixing activity.
Secretary of State Marshall had decided to head the U.S. delegation at the U.N., in response to the report that Foreign Commissar V. M. Molotov would head the Russian delegation, beginning the following week.
Joseph Alsop, writing from Rome, discusses the impending disaster facing Italy for the fact that it was running out of dollars, with no more than 45 million dollars on hand in cash. It was the entire reserve for buying wheat, coal, and raw materials, at a cost of 40 million dollars a month. Thus, Italy had only about five weeks of reserve cash left.
The average Italian was living on 200 grams of bread daily plus a few drops of oil, a helping of vegetables and a morsel of cheese. A loss of U.S. imported wheat would cut the bread ration by a third.
The industrial output depended on imported coal to keep going. At least 1.5 million Italians were unemployed, primarily because of the already scant coal imports, about ten million tons annually, 70 percent of which came from the U.S. With U.S. imports cut off, most industries would have to shut down, leaving six million workers without jobs.
If immediate aid were not forthcoming, Italy would enter a severe depression with starvation and unemployment. That would lead inexorably to absorption of Italy within the Soviet sphere.
While there was still time to avert the disaster, the remedial aid had to be initiated quickly. If Italy were to fall into such economic chaos, the entire European plan for post-war peace would be thrown into chaos. Mr. Alsop asserts that it was a worse crisis than that facing Greece in the winter when President Truman announced his proposed policy of military and financial aid to Greece and Turkey.
Victor Riesel finds the Communist Party more of a plot than a party. The FBI had gathered a lot of telephone conversations and meeting minutes which betrayed plots of various nefarious activities—including infiltration of the Democratic Party. He thinks that they were being orchestrated from New York and Hollywood.
A recent letter-writing campaign organized by the Communist Party to protest the prosecution of the national secretary, Eugene Dennis, for contempt of Congress had resulted in only 5,000 pieces of mail being received by Attorney General Clark, most of it being deposited around central party headquarters in New York.
A new propaganda drive would be directed at trying to get America to stop sending aid to anti-Communist countries and instead loan billions to Russia. Mr. Dennis was in charge of the drive and so had to remain free.
Though the Communists were without any broad following obviously in the United States, the Government feared making public what it had gathered anent the organization, permitting the small machine to continue to operate smoothly.
The Communists had been spending thousands of dollars to tighten their hold on CIO, which controlled much of the seaborne traffic to Europe. They had elected about 65 percent of the delegates to the union convention by convincing, through use of propaganda, sailors at sea that these delegates ought be their representatives. Had the Government exposed the plot, then the sailors would have understood the problem and not so voted.
Samuel Grafton suggests that the Ernest Bevin remark, that the U.S. should spread U.S. gold over the world, had unwittingly furnished to the isolationist a perfect skillet for cooking his isolationist eggs. The person in question believed that the U.S. became involved in the war because of provocation of the Japanese, leading to Pearl Harbor. He suspected that President Truman might be faking the European crisis as part of his 1948 campaign strategy. He believed it wrong for the U.S. to furnish radioactive isotopes to other countries for medical research because it was tantamount to giving away pieces of the atomic secret.
So now the isolationist could come to the defense of Fort Knox against British piracy. The issue had become at once so facile that any isolationist could understand it.
Actually, Mr. Bevin was not being literal but was suggesting that the economies of Europe could not thrive as long as American currency was firm and British currency soft. If the U.S. bought more British goods, it would bolster the strength of the pound. A loan would also help. Redistribution of the gold reserve, as a last resort, might have some positive impact as well.
If Europe crumbled economically, the gold in the U.S. would become virtually worthless as there would be no place to spend it.
He finds it a shame that Mr. Bevin had done so much to encourage the lunkheads with his simplistic, concrete suggestion.
A letter responds to the September 6 letter of A. W. Black attacking the opinion expressed in the letter of the Jewish War Veterans, volunteering as troops for the U.N. to replace the British, whom they wanted evacuated from Palestine forthwith. This writer thinks that Mr. Black had wandered a bit from point when he stated that the homeland of the Jews in Palestine had been eliminated with Julius Severus.
The writer refers the reader to Mark Twain's Letters, quotes from same: "[The Jew] has made a marvelous fight
He thinks that the fact belied Mr. Black's notion of Humpty
A letter from a Spanish-American War veteran takes exception to Mr. Bevin's urging that America put its gold into the stream of world commerce.
Another letter from Lagos, Nigeria, from a 19-year old captain of the Footballers, seeks a pen pal in Charlotte. He tells of many fruits in Nigeria, such as coconuts, oranges, and bananas. He likes games, and so the pen pal could send games to him, along with pictures
As per the previous letters from Lagos residents, he provides his address, that you may write.
A quote from the Dallas Morning News: "It takes a good cook
The Jackson Daily News thinks it beneficial were Mississippi shed of another 100,000 of its population, having already lost 102,000, black and white, from the exodus of labor during the war.
The Quitman Free Press in Georgia finds the expulsion of Reverend Joseph Rabun from his church, for openly denouncing the Talmadge "white supremacy" bill, making the Georgia primary all-white by transmogrifying the parties into private clubs and stripping the statute books of all primary regulations, to be suggestive of the modern church not liking any expression of opinion on events more recent than that occurring in Biblical times
Framed Edition
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