The Charlotte News
Tuesday, November 16, 1948
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President stated to the press that the U.S. would refuse to engage in four-power talks, as urged by the proposals of U.N. General Assembly president Herbert Evatt of Australia and Secretary-General Trygve Lie, until such time as the Berlin blockade were lifted by Russia. He said that there were no plans to meet with Josef Stalin, but that his invitation stood for the Russian Premier to come to Washington to meet with him. He also had no plans to send an emissary to Moscow.
Russia, meanwhile, in response to the Evatt-Lie proposal, asserted that the matters of Berlin and Germany as a whole should be put before the four-power Council of Foreign Ministers for discussion and determination.
The President stated that he wanted Secretary of State Marshall to remain on the job as long as he would desire to do so.
He would not call the 80th Congress back into session to consider aid to China, as suggested by Senator Styles Bridges. He said that the U.S. was in communication with Chiang Kai-Shek regarding the situation in China.
The President sent a message to the AFL convention promising to enlarge the Labor Department.
Christmas turkeys, in substitute for those scheduled for delivery at Thanksgiving but held up by the Pacific Coast maritime strike, were on their way to troops in Japan and would arrive by Thanksgiving from the East Coast via the Panama Canal.
In New York, a thousand railroad workers were laid off because of the continuing strike of East Coast longshoremen.
Mack Bell of The News tells of about 2,000 North Carolina Baptists gathering in Charlotte for their State Convention.
Emery Wister of The News
tells of Republic Pictures actress Adele Mara arriving in Charlotte
for the Christmas Festival the following day. Ms. Mara could not ride
a horse, was scared to death of them, used a double in motion
pictures, except for "Thoroughbreds"
Martha Azer London of The News relates further of the Christmas Festival festivities, which would include Western film star Tex Ritter as well as Ms. Mara. The parade will be at 6:00 p.m. tomorrow. Don't miss it. There will be 300,000 people there to see it. So you can find where it is.
And start singing
On the sports page, Furman Bisher tells of the selection of Clemson as the Southern Conference area team of the week for their victory over Wake Forest the previous Saturday, 21 to 14. The Tigers, coached by Frank Howard—who always said that a tie was like kissing your sister—, were now 7-0, and would go on to finish the season without a blemish, winning the Gator Bowl 24 to 23 against Missouri, finishing 11-0.
On the editorial page, "Woes of the Budget Commission" tells of the State Budget Commission receiving requests for 600 million dollars from the departments of State Government, while only 450 million would be available for allocation. So, it had to be whacked and the question was where to whack. State agencies typically asked for more than they really anticipated receiving, expecting the whacking. Inflation and the State's surplus had inflated the budget requests. The Commission would begin the whacking on November 22 for the start of the 1949 Legislature, January 5.
"Welcome, North Carolina Baptists" suggests that the Baptists mirrored the personality of Southerners and thus it was not surprising that, numerically, it was the largest denomination in North Carolina. The Baptists had been a great factor in the development of the South, providing numerous colleges and orphanages. It had also focused attention on democracy.
So, it welcomes the Baptist State Convention to the city.
"London Lad, Midland Miss" tells of reports from London that thousands of Britons had gathered outside Buckingham Palace on Sunday evening to hear of the birth to Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip of a new son, to be named Charles. The event had spawned cheering in pubs all over London and many a toast was drunk to the new Prince.
In contrast, no toasts were made to the arrival at Charlotte's Presbyterian Hospital of a girl born to Mrs. W. A. Morrison of Midland.
Yet, both babies would cry and cut teeth, splash in their baths, crawl around, learn to talk and walk, and undertake all the other tasks normally developing babies did. The difference would be that the Empire would await with bated breath word of the cutting of the first tooth, the utterance of the first word of young Prince Charles, and, it predicts, around 1962, his first prowess at cricket and, circa 1970, the identity of his date for Epsom Downs.
The parents and close relatives of young Miss Morrison would also be keenly aware of these types of events in her development, but without all of the attendant publicity.
"The life of the prince won't be a bad one. But there will be times, we suppose, when he wouldn't mind changing places with Miss Morrison."
A piece from the Winston-Salem Journal, titled "He Came South—But—", finds a research chemist, correspondent to the newspaper, hunting unsuccessfully for employment in North Carolina to be likely not a unique situation, that the state needed to develop technical fields in which persons trained in such areas could readily find employment.
Drew Pearson tells of the President carefully considering who would be the next Secretary of State, that the person might be in line to succeed President Truman in the office in 1952. He first wanted Chief Justice Fred Vinson, but might ask Justice William O. Douglas to step off the Court to accept the position.
The Fair Labor Standards Act, according to Senator Elbert Thomas of Utah, who would chair the Senate Labor Committee in the next Congress, would receive the first attention before Taft-Hartley, as the 80th Congress had gutted the Act. Senator Thomas had a pro-labor voting record.
Senator William Jenner of Indiana, Republican, had sought to launch investigations into the Senate elections in Texas, the primary race between Congressman Lyndon Johnson and former Governor Coke Stevenson, and the race in Tennessee, between Congressman Estes Kefauver and the selected candidate of Boss Ed Crump of Memphis, as well as the Senate race in Oklahoma, regarding Bob Kerr's alleged spending more than the legal limits. At first, Senator Jenner was claiming fraud at the polls, but made a subdued presentation before the Elections Subcommittee and the matter was dropped.
The investigations had been rushed and released to the press just prior to the election. There were affidavits from Texas regarding irregularities in the election of Mr. Johnson, but also regarding his opponents. There were no affidavits to back up claims of irregularities against Senator-elect Kefauver and Senator-elect Clinton Anderson of New Mexico.
He notes that Senator Jenner's election to the Senate had been engineered by KKK leader Bob Lyons. He also notes that behind the charges lay the GOP concern that the Democrats might examine the election returns for Senator Homer Ferguson of Michigan.
The Senate Expenditures Committee, charged with overseeing the Executive Branch, to become nominally Democratically-controlled in the next Congress, would nevertheless be populated by Senators none too friendly in the past to the President: John McLellan of Arkansas, James Eastland of Mississippi, Clyde Hoey of North Carolina, Glen Taylor of Idaho, A. Willis Robertson of Virginia, and Herbert O'Conor of Maryland.
James Marlow tells of a friend, about 35, university educated, who had found that he knew little or nothing of U.S. history, wanted to learn, determined to use his spare time to read up on the subject.
For those with similar aspirations, Mr. Marlow provides a suitable starting list of books to read. They are: The Growth of the American Republic by Samuel Eliot Morison and Henry Steele Commager, covering American history to 1943; The Rise of American Civilization and America in Mid-Passage by Charles and Mary Beard, the two volumes covering the time through 1932; American Political and Social History by Harold U. Faulkner, covering history to date; A Short History of the United States by Allan Nevins and Henry Steele Commager, which he deems the best short history of the country; American Economic History by Harold U. Faulkner; Economic History of the American People by Ernest Ludlow Bogart; The Growth of American Thought by Merle Curti; and A Diplomatic History of the American People by Thomas A. Bailey.
DeWitt MacKenzie discusses the U.N. social committee drafting of a charter of human rights, with an ongoing struggle between Russia and the non-Communist members. The Soviets had wanted to limit rights of the individual, making him a puppet of the state. The Soviet delegate, Alexander Pavlov, had sought to delete freedom of religion from the declaration, which in its final form recognized "freedom of thought, conscience and religion". The Soviet tenet was that religion was the opiate of the masses.
Freedom of speech and press had also been hotly contested, and the Soviets had voted against the final draft provision.
The Soviets had objected also to a provision providing for freedom of nationality and to change nationality.
There was little resemblance between Soviet Communism of 1948, a totalitarian state expanding by aggression, and that of the original concept of a communal society.
Dr. Charles Malik, Lebanese Ambassador to the U.S. and one of the drafters of the charter, said that it might be America's greatest weapon of psychological warfare, more so than even the atomic bomb.
A piece without a by-line provides the schedule for the 81st Congress in terms of legislation to receive first priority. In foreign policy, NATO would receive first attention. Republican Senator Styles Bridges wanted increased Air Force appropriations and adoption of his five-year, 70-group expansion program for the Air Force.
Domestically, a peacetime excess profits tax would be presented. Producers would be required under proposed legislation to give advance notice before raising prices on cost-of-living items, such as food and clothing, and to justify the increases. Compulsory Government allocation of scarce commodities would be required under proposed legislation, along with standby price control and rationing. Revision of long-range housing legislation, revision of the long-range farm bill's parity formula, repeal of Taft-Hartley, and elimination of the discriminatory tax on margarine were also on the legislative agenda. Civil rights legislation, starting with a ban on poll taxes, would also be considered. Congressional committees had urged anti-Communist legislation.
Samuel Grafton, no longer carried by The News, suggests a "non-Euclidean" approach to foreign policy, that is one which was counter-intuitive, as with mathemeticians showing that parallel lines could eventually intersect, reversing the self-fulfilling prohecy of a foreign policy built on the prospect of war and preparation therefor with one of peace, allowing the assumption of peace to govern reality rather than the assumption of war. In that way, he believes, the Marshall Plan might actually achieve its primary stated goal, reconstruction of Europe, and the 15 billion dollars being spent on defense might be better devoted to domestic policy at home, curing the societal ills, such as the housing shortage, which the Soviets claimed capitalism could not remedy, leading eventually to internal revolt of the proletariat. It seemed, after all, rather silly, he thinks, to be talking of disarmament while arming for a war.
"And I cannot close these non-Euclidean notes without mentioning that a nation which based its appeal on relaxation and confidence might come to be invested with a certain unusual charm, perhaps better suited for attracting adherents and allies than the stricken countenance and the hoarse planetary cry of 'Help!'"
A letter writer finds the November 12 editorial, "UN or Israel—Which?", to have reached illogical conclusions from a logical and concise presentation. It had neglected the fact that the U.N. had awarded to Israel the Negev desert region as part of the partition plan of a year earlier. He regards as matters of first importance to deem Egypt as an aggressor and to assure that British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin abide by U.N. decisions.
A
letter writer finds the newspaper's new type
face, the Memphis Medium, Tempo
He notes that an article which he had written for the newspaper, titled "Grammar and Progress", was to be re-published in a book titled We, the People.
Arden L. Melott of the
Memphis Commercial-Appeal provides a verse titled "Tempus Drags
Framed Edition
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