The Charlotte News

Tuesday, September 2, 1947

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that President Truman told the Pan-American Conference in Rio de Janeiro that the U.S. was determined to remain strong behind a foreign policy aimed at preserving peace permanently. He made it clear that he was not positing the policy in terms of a threat. But the country's aversion to violence should not be interpreted, he said, as representing a lack of will to stand behind the U.N. Charter and that the country's military strength would be maintained as a sign toward this end. He assured the long-term commitment of the United States to aid economic prosperity in Latin America.

He stated a four-point U.S. foreign policy, which included the Marshall Plan in Europe, maintenance of fidelity to the U.N., to remain strong internally, and recognition that the problems of the Western Hemisphere were different from those of Europe, that the defense of the Hemisphere would be maintained with increased vigor.

He pointed out that the post-war world had brought great disappointment in that there were still people of Europe and Asia who lived under the "shadow of armed aggression".

The President received a two-minute ovation at the conclusion of his speech.

In Guayaquil, Ecuador, a new garrison had joined the revolt against the week-old Government of Col. Carlos Mancheno. Quito, the capital, was between two counter-revolutionary groups of troops, opposing the Mancheno Government, installed by coup. Fighting continued with Government troops.

On Guam, Japanese Navy Captain Hiroshi Iwanami, a surgeon, was convicted by a U.S. military tribunal of murder for torturing to death ten American prisoners of war on Truk. Also convicted were 18 of the surgeon's former subordinates. Sentences were not yet announced. Three witnesses had committed suicide during the two-month trial.

At Dugald, Manitoba, at least 35 persons were killed the previous night in a train wreck when two passenger trains collided head-on in the town 20 miles east of Winnipeg. Most of the passengers were Canadians from the Winnipeg area. Most of the dead were so badly burned that identification could not immediately be accomplished. The actual number of dead, said a spokesman, might never be known. It was the worst rail accident in Western Canada's history to that point.

In Chicago, an arbitration board awarded to a million non-operating railroad workers a pay hike of 15.5 cents per hour. The workers had sought 20 cents. It was the third award to the workers within a little more than a year, receiving in 1946 an 18.5 cents raise.

In Jackson, N.C., Buddy Bush, the victim of an attempted lynching on May 23, identified one of the seven defendants, appearing before a magistrate for a probable cause hearing, as being part of the mob which took him from the Northampton County jail in Jackson at gunpoint, before he was able to effect escape into the woods. Mr. Bush said that when the men came to the jail, the identified man stated, "Come on down, nigger, and let's go." Mr. Bush also stated that another of the seven had accompanied a police officer to the jail an hour before the abduction. Mr. Bush only remembered seeing five men in the gang which abducted him. Three came to the jail cell and two waited outside.

The jailer testified that three men came into the jail, demanding Mr. Bush, and the elderly man said that he gave him to the men because he was scared, though he also claimed not to have been threatened with violence, despite the men having pistols. The jailer could not identify any of the men. The jailer's wife said that she was asleep during the whole thing and saw, heard, knew nothing.

The jailer's dog offered a bridge for sale in Brooklyn to anyone with three dollars.

The men who kidnaped Mr. Bush and shot at his head as he escaped were actually, as everyone knows, ghosts of the night who disppeared into thin air.

In Halifax, N.C., a Recorder's Court heard testimony in the assault case of three resigned Highway Patrolmen accused of beating a black prison camp escapee on August 21 near Littleton. The alleged victim contended that the three beat him with saplings and a cartridge belt while the acting police chief of Littleton observed. In an attempted unilateral plea bargain, the principal defense counsel offered a plea of guilty to simple assault by the trooper who had admitted the beating and entered not-guilty pleas for the other defendants. The Solicitor refused to accept the pleas.

In Winston-Salem, an armed posse captured the driver of an automobile which the police alleged had struck and killed a nine-year old bicyclist, later crashed through a stop sign and turned over. The accident occurred on the Lexington Road. Prior to the hit-and-run, the driver had, according to police, run a stoplight, was pursued to the city limits by police at speeds up to 75 mph, before the police abruptly terminated the chase for fear of endangering public safety. A mile afterward, the suspect hit the child at high speed, dragging him 300 yards along the highway. After the car eventually turned over rounding a corner, the driver emerged and ran away.

Residents of the Konnoak Hills community, hearing of the accident, armed themselves and searched the area until they located the suspect. Three police officers identified the man as the driver. Sheriff Ernie Shore said that the man was charged with manslaughter, hit-and-run, reckless driving, speeding and driving without a license.

In Charlotte, executive vice-president of the Chamber of Commerce, C. O. Kuester, announced a campaign through the Carolinas by the Shriners to fund a Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children at Greenville, S.C. The goal had not been set, but was anticipated to be between $50,000 and $200,000. The campaign would last until the December 6 Shrine Bowl high school all-star football game, to be held in Charlotte.

J. A. Daly of The News tells of over 1,400 Charlotte veterans having cashed their military service terminal pay bonds for about $313,000. It was the first day on which veterans could cash their bonds early, as permitted by the 80th Congress. About 18,000 such bonds were estimated to be held in Charlotte. Raleigh banks had cashed over $100,000 in bonds. In Wilmington, 5,000 veterans were cashing in the bonds. The total bonds held nationally were worth approximately two billion dollars, averaging about $216 apiece.

In Charlotte, the Post Office received $165,571.48 in receipts during August, the highest ever for one month, and more than $30,000 more than the previous August. Receipts appeared headed to surpass two million dollars for the year, having exceeded a million dollars in 1937.

Mark it down in your notes, as there will be a pop quiz on this subject later.

On the editorial page, "Who'll Be No. 2?" looks at the process of selecting the vice-presidential running mate for President Truman in 1948. Senator Claude Pepper of Florida had suggested that the President be allowed to hand-pick his own running mate, rather than leaving it to the nominating convention. The piece suggests the gesture as likely indicative of Senator Pepper's belief that the President might then select the Senator, who had not been shy about expressing his vice-presidential ambitions.

The editorial remarks that when that process had been followed in 1940 and 1944, with FDR selecting Henry Wallace and then Mr. Truman, "forcing" same on the delegates, it had created a split in the Democratic Party—the editorial appearing to assume facts not in evidence, however, in the case of Mr. Truman, who was selected by the party bosses, not by the President, as FDR slipped out to the West Coast and then the Pacific for a tour of military bases during the convention, giving his acceptance speech from shipboard on the West Coast by radio, specifically leaving the process of selection from among a short list of candidates to Robert Hannegan and other party leaders.

The piece continues by asking where Southern Democrats fit into the process, having insisted that the liberal Senator Pepper and Mr. Wallace had succeeded in stealing the party away from the Southerners. North Carolina appeared ready to nominate as favorite son Governor Gregg Cherry for the vice-presidency. And it was likely typical of Southern delegations to the convention. But at the end of the day, when the delegate count showed a definite leader, the delegates of the South would fall into line with servility. In that mode, the South would never get its political due from the party.

Political observers were unanimous in concluding that only a liberal nominee would prevent left-wing Democrats from walking out of the convention and forming a third party. But it was not clear that such a candidate could not be a Southerner. To nominate a Southerner who was also progressive might prevent a split in the party ranks. It recommends such a move to unite the Democrats soon, well before the convention the following summer.

"Better Mental Hospitals" tells of Francis Whiteside having spoken at Mount Holly the previous week of the progress in the State mental hospitals, progress made possible by the January, 1942 expose of the late Tom Jimison, who had died in September, 1945. Most patients were now receiving a balanced diet with competent dieticians on staff. The hospital at Morganton had its own farm and a business manager experienced in cattle breeding.

But the state still had to be ashamed of the treatment of its mental patients as hundreds still were processed through the penal system to be mixed with common criminals. They were in need of expert psychiatric care and there was room at the new Camp Butner facility for them, though staffing issues remained problematic at the facility. When it got going, the piece believes, it could become a first-rate facility for treatment of mental patients. Presently, there were 800 senile patients at the facility.

The piece expresses confidence that the State Hospital Board would hasten the process as much as it could to take in the mischanneled inmates from the jails, as it had already worked wonders in acquiring the staff for Butner. It hopes that the facility would become a means of returning patients to a normal, productive life, instead of the system extant which had maintained "thousands sitting in dreary cells, dragging out hopeless, useless lives."

"A Question Is Posed" remarks on the protest by Providence Road residents in Myers Park in Charlotte re the location of an ABC store across the street from a playground. It finds the protest to be surprising, as that area had voted wet in all of the prior referenda on alcohol. But it showed that residents were still taking note of the ABC issue and at least a minority who had voted dry would maintain close watch on the establishment of the new system, approved by voters the previous June.

Reports from other ABC communities, it notes, had shown that ABC stores generally were sedate establishments, unlike the sawdust-covered floors and rowdy patrons of the speakeasies which had been purveyors of alcohol in dry Mecklenburg in the past.

Yeah, but you get that "ABC" up there and those children are going to think that's a place for children's games and wander over there and get all boozed up and go home drunk as sailors in port. You know they will. It's bound to happen. One thing leads to another.

Robert S. Allen tells of Robert Taft's impending tour of the West, set to make political history as he would be accompanied by the largest contingent of journalists, 35 in number, ever to cover a pre-convention tour. It would be in contrast to the Dewey "no comment" tour. The major issues for Senator Taft to address would be foreign policy, social welfare, taxes, housing, and labor. He would speak in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Tacoma, and Seattle, with numerous stops along the way. He would, as he always did, write his own speeches and press releases.

Based on his record in the Congress, Mr. Allen outlines Mr. Taft's likely stands on the various issues. He would denounce Administration policy on foreign affairs, charging that it had no clear foreign policy, that the Truman Doctrine was being poorly administered, that the Marshall Plan was no plan at all but a nebulous conglomeration of several ideas, and that the notion of giving arms to Latin America was potentially disastrous. He would favor putting foreign relief and trade programs in order while disregarding Russia, thereby improving relations with the latter.

On domestic social programs, he would advocate Federal aid to the states for teachers' salaries and improving infrastructure of education, suggesting an expenditure of $50 per child per year. He would also favor a health care program for the states to erect hospitals and clinics, especially in rural areas.

He would claim that the Administration was as much to blame as the housing lobby for the failed housing program and would call for enactment of the Taft-Ellender-Wagner bill at the next session of Congress, providing for low-cost housing funded by the Government.

He would insist on a cut in personal income taxes and a further slash in the Federal budget, including the elimination of unnecessary components of the military establishment.

As to his position on the War Investigating Committee's continuing look into wartime graft, he would state that he had nothing to do with the Committee but believed that it was the public's right to know what type of corruption had taken place during the war, as inevitable as that corruption was.

He would ultimately take the position that he would rather be right than President, and was seeing what he could do about undertaking both tasks.

Maj. General Robert Littlejohn had informed that he, as Quartermaster, was responsible for the cigarette shortage at the front in Europe during the war, not, as Mr. Allen had previously charged, the fault of supply chief Lt. General John C. H. Lee. General Littlejohn stated that Generals Bradley and Patton had stressed that food and ammunition be given top priority, which he then did, leaving little room in transportation for cigarettes.

Former 1936 Republican presidential nominee Alf Landon had supported publicly the Truman Doctrine but also criticized the Administration for not informing the American people what the foreign policy of the country was.

General Eisenhower had never issued a Shermanesque unqualified statement that he would not run if nominated or serve if elected President.

He notes that Lucky Forward would be published later in the month by Vanguard Press, as a history of General Patton and the Third Army. Mr. Allen neglects to inform that he was the author of the book, one well-positioned for the task, having been a part of General Patton's staff during the war.

Joseph & Stewart Alsop discuss NLRB "labor czar", counsel Robert Denham, in his new position created by Taft-Hartley, having ruled that all officers of both CIO and AF of L had to swear in affidavits that they were not Communists, failing which they would not be able to take advantage of the NLRB to resolve labor disputes. The NLRB was set to make possibly its most momentous decision since the Board's creation in 1935, reversing this directive. Mr. Denham, in issuing the order, had interpreted Taft-Hartley more narrowly than any of the legislators who created it had envisioned.

CIO officers had announced that they would refuse to sign such affidavits based on principle. At least three of the officers would risk prosecution for perjury if they had signed the affidavit. AFL, whose officers were fiercely anti-Communist, also appeared ready to refuse to sign, the final decision on the issue to be made September 8. John L. Lewis's younger brother had indicated that John L., head of the UMW and on the board of AFL, would not sign the affidavit.

Thus, the result of Mr. Denham's ruling could return labor relations to the pre-1935 state, without any Government assistance in collective bargaining.

During the previous month, the NLRB chairman, Paul Herzog, had been ill and the five-man Board had, as a consequence, all but ceased to exist, allowing Mr. Denham to exercise his newly acquired powers without effective challenge. But now, with Mr. Herzog's return, the three-man majority, which pre-existed Taft-Hartley, could begin to re-assert itself and reverse the ruling.

If they were to do so, besides the personal enmity surely to follow vis-a-vis Mr. Denham, the Board members would also cause a ripple through Congress, as the more sensible Republican backers of Taft-Hartley privately were horrified at Mr. Denham's interpretation of the Act, thus potentially creating a rift within the party.

Samuel Grafton, returning from a month-long vacation, tells of his summer reading while lying on the beach for that month, occasionally reaching out for a newspaper as it blew by him in the sea breeze and sandy foam.

He had learned that the corn crop was going to be low, that Irwin Shaw would be the drama critic for the New Republic, edited by Henry Wallace, that General Electric had built a betatron able to X-ray for the Navy steel a foot thick, that Virginia Hill, girlfriend of recently murdered Bugsy Siegel, was back in the hospital.

One day, only ads had floated by him, showing him that radios were much cheaper, steaks more rare.

Despite effort, he had not worked out the significance of the messages. Once, a piece of newsprint floated by which told him that one day the country might resort to concentration camps for those citizens suspected of being pro-Russian. He wondered what made someone think so. He then spent the rest of the day hunting fan shells for a small girl named Abigail.

Even a flyer in an A-6 seemed pastoral as he flew by, compared to an editorial saying that the President was nuts to believe that there was anything fishy behind high prices, the prices having resulted from natural processes. The same newspaper had contended a year earlier that natural processes would surely reduce prices without price control.

Once, he had learned that the British were shipping refugee Jews from Europe back to Germany. The only other thing he recalled reading during the vacation was that Americans were taking half a million pounds of sleeping pills per year.

"Somewhere in a hot office there was a man sitting on his dignity, as on a telephone book, and sending out this nonsense into a world in which sandpipers run, so that the scrap of paper he dirties skitters along beside the neat birds."

A letter writer describes his experience in trying to change companies as a cab driver, being refused a permit by the City to drive a Red Top cab but allowed to drive for his previous employer, Yellow Cab, on condition that he promise never to work as a cab driver in Charlotte again should he quit that job. He agreed reluctantly, but then decided recently to switch to Red Top. He had never been in any trouble with the law, but the City inspector told him no dice. He had his lawyer call and ask why he could not transfer companies. The inspector said that they wanted him "to sweat a little". He found the whole process a denial of liberty.

A letter from a Gentile objects to A. W. Black's letter objecting to Jewish immigration to Palestine from Europe. He points out that the British Mandate, still in effect from 1922, provided that Britain was required to secure a Jewish National Home in Palestine, to facilitate Jewish immigration to it, and to encourage close settlement on the land.

A 1939 White Paper issued by Britain, limiting to 75,000 Jewish immigration to Palestine, was declared by the League of Nations and by Winston Churchill as a breach of the Mandate.

The Jewish immigrants to Palestine, in reliance on the 1922 Mandate, had turned a desert into an oasis and built the economic and cultural foundations for their own support and immigration of hundreds of thousands more.

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