Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Jewish forces
called upon all men and women of fighting age to mobilize for the
invasion of the Arab forces, set for May 16. The Jewish state would
be proclaimed at midnight the following night, after the British
mandate concluded on the 15th. Haganah was planning to take over the
former Arab port of Jaffa, already conquered.
In Egypt, it was reported that martial law would be
implemented in Egypt when the Egyptian Army passed into Palestine.
Syria and Lebanon appeared likewise prepared to impose martial law.
The seven-nation Arab League was preparing to establish civil
administration in Palestine, though not a separate state.
The Jewish Agency rejected a plan announced the previous
night by the U.S. advocating establishment of a U.N. high
commissioner in Palestine, saying that it would only increase
disorder and conflict. The plan called for approval by the Security
Council of the truce resolution. The Agency rejected any plan which
did not recognize the new Jewish state. A subcommittee of the
Palestine commission was considering the proposal.
ERP administrator Paul Hoffman announced that the U.S. would
shut off aid to any country which supplied war machinery to Russia.
The President said in a press conference that he disfavored
outlawing of the Communist Party, withheld statement on what he
would do if the Mundt bill passed the Congress. He also stated that
the chances for peace had not been increased by the Russian entreaty
to hold a bilateral conference. He said, however, that he would be
glad to meet with Premier Stalin in Washington.
The President defied Congress to force revelation of
confidential information from Cabinet officers or the White House.
The Congress was considering such a bill to compel disclosure and to
punish any revelation of confidential information thus turned over
to a committee.
The Air Force announced that it was testing the McDonnell
XF-85, a jet-propelled fighter which rode into the skies in the bomb
bay of a B-36. The plane would travel at around 650 miles per hour
at top speed.
Plans for a nationwide strike of long distance telephone
operators was being planned by the American Telephone Workers, but
no strike date had yet been announced.
Seventy-five North Carolina Republicans endorsed Judge Wilson
Warlick to become the next Federal District Court Judge for the
Western District of North Carolina, already appointed by President
Truman and pending confirmation by the Senate.
Ralph Gibson of The News tells of the ride through
Mecklenburg of Jane Parks McDowell, informing the militiamen in 1780
that the British were departing. The ride would be depicted as part
of "Shout Freedom!", the outdoor drama by LeGette
Blythe, to begin May 20, celebrating the signing of the Mecklenburg
Declaration of Independence, claimed to have been performed May 20,
1775. Ms. McDowell reported to Col. William R. Davie the
departure of Lord Cornwallis and his troops, headed to Winnsboro,
S.C., along the York Road.
On the editorial page, "Totalitarian Bill in Disguise" discusses the Mundt bill, "The Subversive Activities Control
Act of 1948", designed to crush the Communist Party in the
country through mandatory registration of members and punishment for
subversive activities. The requirements included Communist-front
organizations. It did not outlaw the party for the belief that such
action would only drive it underground.
But the Mundt bill would also drive Communists and
fellow-travelers underground to avoid the penalty provisions. It was
a resort to police state methods to destroy a perceived totalitarian
threat to the country and would harm democracy. No serious enough
Communist threat was extant in the country, it finds, to justify the
Mundt bill.
"Russia Too Eager for Peace" finds Secretary of
State Marshall correct in asserting to the Russians that they would
need take up international peace settlements in the U.N., not in a
bilateral conference with the U.S. But the piece also reminds that
the cold war was being conducted bilaterally.
The piece asserts that settlements reached in the U.N. would
have more force than bilateral agreements in any event. But, by the
same token, it was important to realize that the international
dispute was primarily between Russia and the U.S., and that there
would be no resolution in the U.N. without preliminary agreement by
the two major powers. It thus believes that a conference at least to
air out these differences and seek some preliminary understanding
would be prudent.
"Our Hospitals Deserve a Hand" reports hospitals
doing well in the city and everywhere else in the state, carping to
the contrary notwithstanding. The death rate had decreased from 10.5
per thousand in 1934 to 7.8 the previous year. It would jump
naturally in another decade for the fact that more people would be
advancing into old age.
All hospitals were overcrowded and understaffed, but,
nevertheless, infant mortality rates had declined from 77.9 per
thousand in 1934 to 35.4 in 1947.
Governor Gregg Cherry had proclaimed the week National
Hospital Week and the piece urges readers to pay their hospital
bills promptly and be courteous and considerate during hospital
visits.
A piece from the Kansas City Star, titled "You
Can't Keep 'Em Down", tells of Government payrolls still being
large three years after the war, despite cuts in wartime agencies.
Non-military agencies had increased in the meantime their personnel.
The piece wonders at the promised economy and cuts of
Government personnel posed against this actual increase, thinks the
taxpayers deserved an explanation.
Drew Pearson provides kudos to outgoing Secretary of
Agriculture Clinton Anderson, heading home to New Mexico to run for
the Senate. He had been the primary responsible agent for effecting
success in the Italian elections by the fact that at the end of the
war, he had ordered farm production increased rather than decreased,
to provide enough grain to feed Europe.
As a young reporter for the Albuquerque Journal, he
had uncovered the first tip in the Teapot Dome scandal during the
Harding Administration, that Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall
had received a $25,000 stallion from Harry Sinclair as a bribe,
resulting ultimately in both men being sentenced to jail terms.
He finds that he had performed admirably during his tenure as
Secretary of Agriculture. He had provided for adequate soap after
the war by insuring that copra, a key ingredient, was shipped out of
the Philippines in small boats. By selling off surplus cotton to
Japan and Germany for the manufacture of textiles, he had assured
that the large surplus held by the U.S. Commodity Credit Corporation
did not become a liability to the Government and the taxpayers.
One of his greatest achievements was the successful
negotiation for purchase of two Cuban sugar crops simultaneously, to
keep prices down in 1946 and 1947. Cuba initially had balked at the
proposal for the desire to have high prices. Mr. Anderson warned
that stability would be the best road to travel as high prices would
inevitably wind up in a bust cycle. The Cuban President, Grau San
Martin, agreed, but the workers feared that American wheat, lard,
and other necessary commodities would go up in price while the sugar
farmers were stuck receiving low sugar prices. Mr. Anderson then
proposed a hike in the sugar price commensurate with the rise in
American prices of wheat and lard. President San Martin agreed and
the deal was consummated, providing one reason for the price of
sugar post-war having remained stable.
Stewart Alsop, in Vienna, finds fear pervading the dreary
city, with the people becoming hardened to living under the Soviet
Sword of Damocles. The future of Austria was being decided in
Moscow, inexorably affecting, in turn, the future of the world.
Western negotiators had plainly left the next move up to Russia. The
Soviets could sign an Austrian treaty and cause the Western forces
to evacuate or seek to meld the Russian occupation zone with the
Soviet empire.
Signing a treaty had once been appealing, as Austria would
then be easy pickings for the Soviets. But now with the Marshall
Plan going into effect, Austria could rebuild and become
economically independent. The Western allies had made it known that
they would evacuate Austria only if the Western European Union and
the U.S. guaranteed Austria's borders. Moreover, the Communist Party
in Austria was weak. It was likely therefore that the Russians would
not sign a treaty.
The pressure by the Soviets on Western powers in Vienna would
almost certainly increase in the event that a treaty became no
longer a realistic possibility.
It was likely that Austria would wind up partitioned as
Germany. Yet, there were major differences from Germany, as the
Austrian officials of the Russian zone were not accountable to the
Russians and Austrians were able to move freely between zones. Most
Austrians in the Russian zone were openly anti-Communist and
anti-Soviet. The workers were represented by Socialist unions which
were bitterly anti-Communist.
It was nevertheless expected that partition of Austria would
begin soon after treaty negotiations broke down. Freedom would
slowly die in the Soviet zone. It might not happen, he offers, but
the Western powers had to be prepared to respond firmly to any
Soviet expulsion of the Austrian Government from their zone.
Samuel Grafton warns that it would be dreadful for the U.S.
not to be the first nation to recognize an independent Jewish state
in Palestine. It would confuse the world to withhold recognition. He
asks who the U.S. would recognize as an independent state if not
Israel, as it represented the end of an era and the beginning of a
new democratic one in the region.
Israel presented an especially good case for recognition for
the strength it had demonstrated in recent months. Had it proved
weak, it would be ripe for international encroachment and resulting
unrest.
The U.S., he ventures, should not, by refusing recognition,
tacitly insist that Israel be subservient to the Arabs after having
demonstrated its viability as an independent state.
A letter writer responds to two previous letter writers
regarding the issue of world government, favors its implementation,
thinks that it would be the answer to avoid atomic war.
A letter from a dental health officer thanks the newspaper
for making the the first annual Dental Health Week for Schoolagers a
success.
Listen here, Mr. Dentist, with sugar prices so stable, we
want to consume massive quantities of sugar. So you had better have
a toothpaste ready to counteract the impact of all of that sugar.