Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Secretary of State
Marshall urged Congress to pass the European Recovery Program in
such form that it would be effective or not to pass it at all. He
also indicated opposition to the GOP-proposed plan for a Government
corporation to administer the program, supporting the President's
proposal for a single administrator responsible to the President and
Secretary of State. He further stated that the 6.8 billion dollars
proposed to be allocated for the first 15 months of the program was
a figure reached with precision and not a generous estimate.
House Ways & Means Committee chairman Harold Knutson
stated that the President's proposed tax plan was "as dead as a
mackerel". He said that he intended to press his own 5.6
billion dollar tax cut package. Speaker Joe Martin agreed that the
President's plan to increase corporate taxes by 3.2 billion to pay
for an individual tax cut would get nowhere.
But former Speaker Sam Rayburn backed the President's plan
and conceded nothing. Senator Tom Connally also indicated support
for the plan.
In Jerusalem, seven Jews of the Irgun organization freed a
captured Jew from the hospital, who had been arrested the previous
day in the bomb attack at the Jaffa gate. Three in the armored car
had been killed and two others had been arrested.
The death toll in Palestine since the partition by the U.N.
on November 29 had reached 627. In the Jaffa gate incident, 17 Arabs
had been killed and 36 injured, along with two British police
officers.
The President announced appointment of George V. Allen,
Ambassador to Iran, to become Assistant Secretary of State for
Public Affairs. Mr. Allen was from Durham, N.C. He would succeed
William Benton who had resigned on October 1. The position was
responsible for the Voice of America broadcasts and other foreign
information programs.
The report, incidentally, makes a mistake when it says that
Mr. Allen accompanied Secretary of State James Byrnes to the 1943
Moscow conference. Mr. Byrnes did not become Secretary of State
until July, 1945, following the U.N. Charter Conference. Edward
Stettinius became Secretary in November, 1944. Cordell Hull remained
Secretary throughout FDR's Presidency until that time. Mr. Byrnes
was at the time, in late 1943, the War Mobilizer, deemed "assistant
President" to FDR.
Senator Charles Tobey announced that the Banking Committee
would begin hearings the following week on the renewed proposal of
the President that he be granted authority to control prices and
wages, stating that there was little interest among Republicans in
granting such power. Some Republicans, Senator Homer Capehart and
Senator Ralph Flanders, were introducing bills for price control and
rationing.
Steel magnate Henry Kaiser urged the steel industry to create
an impartial anti-inflation commission to police voluntary
agreements among industrialists to charge reasonable prices. He
wanted to insure that allocations of steel did not crush
small business and new manufacturers.
Senator Homer Ferguson stated that his Appropriations
subcommittee investigating grain speculation was going to
investigate former Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau—in
another effort during the election campaign to tarnish the Roosevelt
image while investigating everybody, except Republicans. Mr.
Morgenthau had appeared on a corn traders list released by the
Department of Agriculture. He stated that he had lost money in his
trading the previous year. He had not been in Government service
since July, 1945.
In Washington, Charles Michelson, former publicity director
for the DNC and journalist, died at age 79 from congestive heart
failure. He had retired in 1943. He had worked on several West Coast
and New York newspapers during his journalism career.
Four Marines had disappeared on a hunting trip on Christmas
Day near Tsingtao, China. Another had been reported AWOL. The
Chinese reported that the Communists had killed one of the five
Marines.
In Rio de Janeiro, the Communist Party had been outlawed and
police fought with Communists attempting to publish their newspaper.
Four Communists were wounded in the fighting.
In Bern, Switzerland, two newspapers speculated that Josef
Stalin might be dead. The Soviet Embassy in London denied the rumor.
In Frankfurt, Germany, a German woman from the Russian
occupation zone was arrested seeking to enter the U.S. occupation
zone illegally, carrying smuggled food consisting of two smoked cats
and one smoked dog.
Hmm-mmm. Gooo-oood. Those are good victuals, especially with
onions and Russian dressing.
In Needmore, W. Va., twin boys were born two days apart,
delivered by two different doctors. Apparently, they needed more.
Tom Fesperman tells on an inside page of one of Charlotte's
outstanding black citizens, retired barber Thad Tate. Mr.
Tate had given his shop to his employees.
On the editorial page, "America's Year of Decision"
discusses the President's tax-cutting plan set forth in his State of
the Union message of the previous day, proposing a $40 individual
"cost of living" credit for every taxpayer and dependents
of the taxpayer, coupled with an increase of 3.2 billion in
corporate taxes to offset the loss of revenue. The plan undercut the
Republican proposal to provide across the board tax cuts to
everyone, with about 70 percent of the 5.6 billion going to the
lower income brackets.
The piece finds the President playing election-year politics
in so proposing. It was not good statesmanship as it was
inconsistent with the Administration's urging of big business to cut
prices, a movement begun by GE.
The tax battle on Capitol Hill promised to weaken ERP, as
Republicans would be invigorated by the President's challenge on
taxes to cut down the Marshall Plan further than they already had
indicated they would.
It was a time for curtailment of the Government bureaucracy,
but the President's proposals provided no hope along those lines. His
social program suggested larger government. The piece posits that
the country could not fight Communism abroad, rebuild Europe, cut
taxes at home and enact the domestic program proposed by the
President.
The President acted the part of the candidate in making his
proposals and that was to be expected in a presidential election
year. The leadership of neither party, it opines, had shown a
willingness to put the country first, ahead of partisan advantage.
"Doug's 'Labyrinth of Destiny'" comments on the
prospect of General MacArthur entering the GOP race for the
presidential nomination, prompted by his reply to the Wisconsin
Secretary of State that he would be honored to have the support of
his home state's population for "public service". The
Secretary interpreted it as an affirmative nod that he would seek
the nomination. But others in Wisconsin, including the State Chief
Justice, found it devoid of any such notion.
The piece is impressed by the language in the message quoted
in the title, finds it unlikely that General MacArthur indited such
a phrase just to show his skill at phraseology. It accepts that his
hat would be in the ring and urges the General to make it official.
A piece from the Winston-Salem Journal, titled "Oil
and the People", tells of Congressman Robert Doughton of North
Carolina urging that it would be up to the people to determine
whether to impose controls on the oil industry regarding the current
fuel oil shortage. He expected them to demand control should the
industry not remedy the situation.
The piece finds that such a demand would be contingent on
what would occur in the coming few weeks of winter weather.
Another "pome" from the Atlanta Journal,
this one "Revealing a Valuable Tip in the Matter of Purchases
that Will Save You Considerable Moolah":
Here's a money-saving plan;
Buy it wholesale if you can.
Drew Pearson tells of Dominican Republic dictator Rafael
Trujillo harboring enemies of Venezuela and apparently preparing to
send an armed invasion force against the country. An intercepted
letter from Sr. Trujillo outlined the plot. He had been purchasing
arms from Brazil for the purpose, far more than needed for the
defense of his own country.
Czechoslovakia was preparing to devalue its currency,
following in the footsteps of Russia.
An 80 million dollar recovery plan for the Navajo Indians to
extend over a decade would soon be placed before Congress by the
Department of Interior and Secretary J. A. Krug. Conditions on the
reservation from drought and soil erosion had deteriorated to the
point where emergency aid appeared necessary. He outlines the six
programs which would be proposed to improve life on the reservation.
He notes that many Navajo who had fought during the war
wanted the right to vote and were planning to take their battle into
the Arizona courts.
Marquis Childs suggests that Henry Wallace's entry as a
third-party candidate to the 1948 race might deal a fatal blow to
the Truman bid for re-election. It gave the GOP the sense that they
could win without making concessions to independents.
A few months earlier, a prominent New Deal Democrat was
approached to be the Wallace manager. Refusing, he warned Mr.
Wallace that if he went through with the candidacy he would destroy
himself and do a disservice to the country. The unnamed Democrat—probably James Farley—
urged Mr. Wallace to remain in the party and support the President.
Then, if, after the election, he still felt let down, he could start
a third party or work for his own nomination as a liberal in 1952.
Mr. Wallace eschewed the practical advice, a problem
throughout his career, letting himself be guided by "some very
curious people."
He was not so much a politician as a scientist and
philosopher. And his contribution to agricultural science, with his
high-yield hybrid corn, was not insubstantial.
So it was not surprising that his supporters wanted a
politically savvy Democrat to manage the campaign. No one presently
in the Wallace camp had such practical experience and knowledge.
One political realist had stated that the Democrats would not
win without the "lunatic fringe" and that Mr. Wallace
would take it with him. Mr. Childs finds truth in the statement, but
posits that there was more to it, that Mr. Wallace voiced the hopes
and fears of many who were troubled and confused.
Samuel Grafton challenges conservatives to show the way of
controlling inflation by voluntary measures, per the GOP bill from
the special session the previous month. He continues his suggestion
of an across-the-board price reduction of five percent. France had
tried it a year earlier with inconclusive results. But France had
been in too much economic trouble for it to work. Some consumers
did, however, respond.
The poor American corn crop the previous year had saved the
country from a recession, scaring consumers and stoking inflation.
He wants businesses to begin posting at once a "5"
on their stores to indicate participation. If the program did not
start voluntarily, then the way of volunteerism would be inevitably
the way to recession.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop tell of the future of ERP being on
the shoulders of Secretary of State Marshall and Senator Arthur
Vandenberg, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. Both stood
above politics and appeared prepared to engage in the necessarily
strong persuasions to obtain approval for the Plan more or less as
proposed.
Secretary Marshall had suggested that he would tell the
Congress that cuts in the program would cripple it. And no members
of Congress, save perhaps Senator Glen Taylor, running with Henry
Wallace, would want to be responsible for the failure of the Plan.
Senator Vandenberg had shown that he would remain independent
of the Administration to wield authority in the GOP, but would not
compromise on principle with his party members. It explained his
recommendation, accepted by the Administration, to state a proposed
allocation only for the first year of aid, while continuing to seek
a four-year commitment, a sound strategic move. He also favored
referring the ERP administration issue to the Brookings Institution.
There was reason to believe that Senator Taft would openly
contest Senator Vandenberg on these issues. While many Republicans
wanted to follow the isolationist rhetoric of Senator Taft, they
were beginning to doubt whether that line would carry them to
re-election. If Senator Vandenberg succeeded in chilling them from
joining the Taft cadre, the world would stand appreciative at the
"blackmail of virtue".
A letter from the Mayor of Monroe, N.C., thanks The News
for its support of the town during 1947 and for supporting generally
the growth of the Piedmont Carolinas area.