The Charlotte News

Monday, March 22, 1948

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that a Jewish state was expected to be declared by the Jewish National Council in Palestine this date or the following day. Tel Aviv would be the capital and it would be defended by Jewish arms. David Ben-Gurion, head of the Jewish Agency, stated Saturday that a Jewish state had already come into being. The reversal of the U.S. stance on partition at the U.N., announced Friday, had accelerated the course of action.

There appeared little evidence of Jewish resentment to the change of U.S. policy, as most had reconciled themselves to the failure of partition given the violence which had taken 2,000 lives since November 29, when partition was approved by the General Assembly.

A Jewish truck loaded with explosives penetrated the Arab section of Haifa and then detonated, causing many casualties. Haganah reported that twenty Arabs and four Jews were killed the previous night in an Arab attack on a Jewish settlement in southern Palestine.

In Germany, the Russians walked out of a meeting of the Allied Control Council on Saturday and then announced that they would not attend scheduled meetings of the four-power government structure of Germany. General Lucius Clay, U.S. Military Governor, said that despite the Russian boycott, the U.S. would remain in Berlin. He made the statement in response to questions anent Russian-controlled newspaper editorials urging the other three powers to abandon Berlin. During this month, Russians were in control of the meetings, but the rotating chair would go to the Americans the following month.

Yugoslavia protested the manner of the proposal of the three Western powers to return Trieste to Italy, stating that Yugoslavia as an ally should have first been consulted and that the timing, just in advance of the April 18 Italian elections, made the proposal appear propagandistic. Yugoslavia did not, however, register objection per se to the proposal, but said that the change was not in the interest of the Italian people or that part of Europe. Italy accepted the proposal. Diplomats in Italy said that they believed Russia had been planning a similar proposal to that of the West, that the West had simply beaten them to the punch.

Congressman Charles Eaton of New Jersey, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, declared that a third world war was "not very remote". He said that the prevailing view on his Committee was that all of the aid appropriated for ERP was essentially military aid to prevent conquest. He urged that the Rules Committee send the ERP bill to the floor forthwith for urgent passage. The House bill included the aid to Turkey, Greece, and China and so amounted to 6.205 billion dollars for the first year. The Appropriations Committee recommended an additional 55 million dollars in provisional aid to Italy, Austria, and France while ERP was being set up.

Dr. Karl Compton, chairman of the President's committee which recommended universal military training, testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee that time was "running out" for military preparedness in case of an emergency and that both the President's proposed temporary draft and UMT ought be implemented by the Congress.

Senate confreres seeking to reconcile the differing House and Senate bills on rent control extension saw a problem in the local rule provision in the House bill, allowing local rent boards to determine controls. The Senate was firmly against local rule and insisted that the House confreres therefore had to compromise the provision. Some Senators speculated that the provision might be a deliberate stumbling block to prevent the extension.

Near Kelso, Washington, in the vicinity of Mt. St. Helens, a search was being conducted for a lost C-47 transport plane which was last seen near Yacolt the previous afternoon. The plane, carrying eight persons, was bound for Portland from the Air Force base at Fairfield, California.

In Mt. Airy, N.C., a woman and her eighteen-year old daughter were shot to death the previous night at 9:00, following a quarrel between the mother and a local barber, held under guard at the hospital where he was being treated for pistol wounds to his face after an attempted suicide, albeit not seriously injured. He had been charged with two counts of first degree murder. His name was not Floyd.

A surviving daughter, 16, told of the fracas following a daylong discussion between her mother and the barber over whether they should stop seeing one another. They had been going together for a year. Both had been drinking. He entered the bedroom where the mother and both daughters were, asked the daughters to leave and as they did so, they heard a shot, which had hit their mother in the heart. The older daughter fled the house, screaming, and the barber followed, shot her as she crossed the street, killing her almost instantly. The barber then turned the gun on himself.

Mayberry is not always as advertised.

Dick Young of The News tells of plans being laid for a new technical institute in Charlotte under the sponsorship of the Extension Division of North Carolina State. Training would be provided in electrical, radio, and telephone repair, metalworking, woodworking, sheet metal, automotive repair, and other such crafts.

In London, The People speculated that Princess Elizabeth might become a mother in October. No comment came from Buckingham Palace. They were close: Prince Charles would be born November 14, short six days of being a year from the marriage between Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip.

Honi soit qui mal y pense.

On Saturday night in Kansas City, Baylor topped Kansas State 60 to 52, and in New York at Madison Square Garden, Kentucky beat Holy Cross by the same score, in the N.C.A.A. Tournament semifinals, determining, respectively, the Western and Eastern champions. The following night in the Garden, therefore, Kentucky would face Baylor for the national championship. Holy Cross would meet Kansas State in the consolation match.

On the editorial page, "American Realism on Palestine" finds the about-face by the U.S. on the Palestine partition plan, favoring its scrapping and creation of a trusteeship in its stead, to put U.S. security and foreign interests first, ahead of practical politics. It would enable the U.S. to work itself out of a difficult position with respect to Russia, as the Government did not want to risk giving the Soviets a foothold in the troubled Holy Land by sending an international police force there to maintain the peace. The Government was concerned also that Arab resentment over the plan would weaken U.S. positions in Africa and the Middle East, the latter vital for its oil.

Some called it a sell-out and another Munich. But given the world crisis, as set forth by the President and Secretary of State Marshall, a real war in every respect save the shooting, it was necessary to eliminate the partition plan and maintain U.S. interests. The President thus should be credited with courage even though taking a politically unpopular stance domestically.

The other justification was the impracticality of implementing the plan. The trusteeship held out hope at least for eventual reconciliation between Arab resentment and the establishment of a Jewish homeland. Yet, the trusteeship also raised all of the problems inherent in the partition plan. Many would charge that it only enabled America and the Arabs to dictate policy in Palestine.

Against the change in policy was the terrible plight of the Jews, leaving them worse off than before the U.N. passage of partition the previous November 29. The change in U.S. position undermined foreign confidence in American integrity and in the U.N. itself.

Subsequent events might prove the change in policy wise but that remained to be seen. Should it backfire, then America would have egg on its face for following the expedient course when the uncompromising position was most needed in the face of a foreign threat.

"Gambling Draws the Bandits" urges the break-up of gambling operations in and around Charlotte as they were drawing a corrupt element to the city in search of "easy money", as described by the youth under arrest for the shooting and robbery of a prominent local attorney on Thursday night as the latter emerged from a craps game. The defendant, who admitted his part in the crime, but said that his accomplice from Georgia did the shooting, hailed from Maine. That such youths were coming from distant places to Charlotte in search of "easy money" in a growing city meant that its reputation was spreading along the grapevine, necessitating the eradication of the attractive nuisance afforded by such underground gambling.

"Cut Taxes for a Day, Anyway" comments on Senator Walter George of Georgia, ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, stating his support for the Republican 4.8 billion dollar tax cut on the basis that it would be better to cut taxes for a day even if war had to be declared the following day and the tax cut reversed. It demonstrated that the old rule was in play, cutting taxes when in doubt. At least it would communicate to the world that the country was confident that things were not as bleak as pictured by the leaders.

Drew Pearson tells of Russia being obsessed with the capability of the U.S. to drop an atomic bomb on Soviet cities. The points from which such an attack might be launched were Japan, Alaska, England, Italy, Greece, Iceland, and Saudi Arabia. One plane would be intercepted by the mass of Russian fighters protecting its borders. But seven separate missions from each base, launched simultaneously, might make interception difficult. Thus, the Soviet strategy appeared aimed at presently taking as much territory as possible to make such an attack unfeasible. It explained why there was a squeeze play on Denmark and Norway by the Russians and why, reportedly, the Soviets were reaching out as far as Iceland. If Russia could successfully take over Italy, and hence Greece and Saudi Arabia, it would only have Japan and Alaska about which to be concerned as a source of attack. Russia could then amass its interceptors in Siberia.

A strange omission in the Truman address to Congress the previous week on foreign policy was air power.

He notes that the present cold war positions might not be extant had Russia accepted the U.S. offer to share in atomic energy on condition of permitting international inspections.

He next informs that the President had, after three months, finally found a man to become head of the Civil Aeronautics Board, Joseph O'Connell, former Treasury Department counsel. He had been a lawyer with the firm of deceased O. Max Gardner, former Undersecretary of Treasury and Ambassador to Britain, who died just as he was preparing to sail to London to take his post in February, 1947.

Secretary of State Marshall told Republican Congressmen that America could not stand for Russia to take over any more countries, but deferred to the President the question whether that meant war. He added that the Russians made money by taking over countries, as they took things out, while America put things in, costing it money to take over a country.

He avoided a question on why the country was so interested in stopping Communism in Europe but not in China.

He said that the draft was an immediate necessity and universal military training, a long-range requirement.

He refused to answer a question whether the Administration policy was a cry of "wolf", but said it would be better to have the wolf in America than in Europe.

Marquis Childs tells of two incidents in the campaign of Henry Wallace which had caused question of his honesty. One was his statement the previous week that the takeover by the Communists in Czechoslovakia had come in reaction to an attempt by U.S. Ambassador Laurence Steinhardt to orchestrate a right wing coup against the coalition Government in Prague. Mr. Childs points out that Ambassador Steinhardt had been away from Czechoslovakia from November 24 until February 19, two days after the start of the takeover, which concluded February 20. He had known nothing of the internal politics or the attempt of the takeover, as betrayed by his earlier statement, a few days before the crisis, that democracy was so well rooted in the country that a Communist takeover by force was not feasible.

Mr. Wallace's statement served only to give rationale to the Communists and thus encourage war.

The second incident was his having stated that capitalist pressure from America had caused the British Labor Government to postpone indefinitely nationalization of the steel industry. MP Jennie Lee, wife of Health Minister Aneurin Bevin, reacted by calling the statement untrue, that the Labor Government was moving forward with nationalization of coal, gas, and electricity, then steel, the latter of necessity awaiting the full nationalization of the other three industries. The effort of Mr. Wallace appeared to be to undermine Labor confidence in the Marshall Plan as a capitalist ploy, to induce the Labor Government to reject it.

These statements of Mr. Wallace encouraged war, the antithesis of his stated goal. It was possible that he was blinded by his own ambition and the encouragement of Communists and fellow travelers in his camp. But to follow him, Mr. Childs opines, was to be deaf, dumb, and blind.

Samuel Grafton again defines terms. "Atomic science" had nothing to do with the recent outbreak of Republican competitors in the presidential race.

"Confidence" was favored by conservatives, was higher under President Truman, who got along with no one, than under FDR when he was friendly with Russia during the war. It was at its highest level in the summer of 1929 under President Hoover, just before the October Crash. It nearly vanished under the New Deal when everybody was making a living again. Electing a Republican would, no doubt, cause confidence to soar to new heights.

"The Swing of the Pendulum" was the theory that after a few years of one kind of administration, the voters swung to another, opposite in ideology.

"Dignity" was an important personal quality, often confused with respectability. The bipartisan foreign policy had respectability but not necessarily dignity. Dignity would require making peace at once.

"Important Advance in Foreign Policy" referred to a decision of government to spend twice as much the following year to describe a policy which did not work the previous year.

The Charleston News & Courier, in a quote, warns of armed force in South Carolina to prevent implementation of the President's civil rights program, should it seek to integrate public schools and colleges, hotels and clubs. The Federal Government would need armed forces prepared to "wage a war of extermination" against "self-respecting white people".

That might not have been a bad idea in the long-run, saving the country a whole lot of grief over the years at the expense of a few dumb rednecks who did not deserve to live in this country in the first place.

A letter writer disagrees with "Taft and the War Danger" in laying at the doorstep of Senator Robert Taft the present danger of war. He accuses The News of being the reverse of the isolationist Chicago Tribune, finding it to have belittled the bipartisan foreign policy, found no real Russian threat, opposed the Truman Doctrine and the "get tough" policy toward Russia enunciated by former Secretary of State James Byrnes in September, 1946, and given editorial sympathy to Henry Wallace.

The editors set the record straight, contrary to the beliefs of the writer, on the positions taken by The News, state that the newspaper had pointed out the dangers in the Truman Doctrine, criticized Senator Taft's isolationism, including his stance against the Truman Doctrine and his desire to limit ERP, opposed Henry Wallace's advocacy for appeasement, supported ERP, UMT, and the limited temporary draft, endorsed creation of the Western European Union of France, Britain and the Benelux countries, editorialized in favor of increased resort to the U.N., and generally sought to avoid whipping war hysteria while not minimizing the East-West crisis.

A letter from P.C. Burkholder answers a previous writer critical of his stance against the March of Dimes, finding it hypocritical and spending more on its staff than fighting polio. Mr. Burkholder tells of Forsyth County being the only county nationwide not conducting a drive, for the same reasons he had enunciated.

He thinks the dark side of the New Deal ought be told rather than using FDR's image and a positive presentation of the program as publicity for the March of Dimes drive.

President Truman, he says, had destroyed 80 million dollars worth of Irish potatoes in 1947 to keep the prices high, continuing New Deal policies.

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