The Charlotte News

Tuesday, June 1, 1948

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note The front page reports that the Israelis bombed Amman, Trans-Jordan, seat of talks by Arab leaders and the locus of formation of King Abdullah's Arab Legion. An RAF field was said to have been bombed in the process, killing twelve and injuring 30. The bombing raid consisted of four individual sorties. Arabs demanded that Tel Aviv be bombed again in retaliation for the attack.

Jews also attacked in Lebanon and Syria, bombing several Lebanese villages near the frontier and blowing up several police posts in Syria near the border.

Haganah was said to be driving on Jenin in north-central Palestine, a key to Arab strength.

Israelis had captured on Sunday Lajjun along the southern rim of the valley of Esdraelon, site of Armageddon. Arabs were now counter-attacking the location.

Jewish artillery was said to have inflicted high Arab casualties at Isdud below Tel Aviv.

Both sides continued to claim victory at Latrun, 22 miles southeast of Tel Aviv on the crucial supply road to Jerusalem.

The Arab Higher Committee in Cairo claimed, in an unconfirmed report, that Arab forces had cut the road from Haifa to Tel Aviv. Such a move would have tightened the Arab arc around Tel Aviv.

Israel accepted the U.N. proposal for the four-week truce during which arms shipments to both Arabs and Jews would cease.

The Columbia River flood waters forced the evacuation along a 120-mile stretch of the river in Oregon in the area of Portland, following the breaks in the dikes which had swamped the town of Vanport, killing at least 20 people. The crest of the waters would reach Portland this night or the following day. Part of downtown was under water during this day as yet two more dikes had broken.

A tank filled with 100,000 gallons of gasoline had fallen into the Columbia River at Umatilla, but the Army Corps of Engineers discounted the risk of fire as the gasoline was mixing well, they said, with the flood water.

Don't eat the fish.

It was unlikely that the Senate Appropriations Committee would press its invitation to General MacArthur to return to testify on Far East relations. The General had responded to the Committee's invitation by saying that he was too busy at present to return and did not wish to do so in any event until after the Republican convention to avoid political taint.

In Georgia, the Democratic executive committee determined to turn all delegate votes against the President because of his advocacy of the civil rights program.

In Atlanta, the Southern Presbyterian Church convention voted to hold in abeyance for five years the proposal to unite the Northern and Southern branches of the Church. Dr. L. Nelson Bell of Montreat, N.C., suggested the delay. It was thought that the proposal would presently be defeated if placed on the agenda.

The Church voted to remain in the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America despite the organization's favor of non-segregation and charges that it was socialist-leaning and doctrinally unsound. Requests for withdrawal had been made by the Presbetery of Meridian, Miss., and a church in Augusta, Ga.

In Norfolk, 22 men, nine of whom were Marines and thirteen of the Navy, died near Hampton Roads when a Navy launch was swamped by choppy waters as it returned 90 men to their ship after Memorial Day leave.

The three-day Memorial Day weekend violent-death toll was 404, including the 22 dead in the Hampton Roads incident, with 204 caused by traffic accidents. The National Safety Council had predicted 225 fatalities in traffic accidents. Pennsylvania and Virginia each accounted for 33 of the deaths. The death toll was a hundred less than in 1947, but substantially more than the 292 of 1946. The previous year's total, however, had included 95 killed in two airline crashes and another 43 in tornadoes.

The Justice Department announced the arrest for deportation of the national director of education for the American Communist Party. He was accused of illegally entering the country from Austria-Hungary in 1931.

The Supreme Court, in Hilton v. Sullivan, 334 U.S. 323, a decision delivered by Justice Hugo Black, unanimously upheld the Civil Service Commission regulations providing special protection for war veterans during layoffs of Government workers, based on statutory interpretation. A non-veteran had brought the case after being demoted and furloughed in preference to a veteran. There was no constitutional question at issue.

A proposed constitutional amendment establishing equal rights for women was approved by the House Judiciary Committee.

John L. Lewis continued to insist that UMW would not recognize the Southern Coal Producers Association in contract talks, despite an NLRB motion being presented in Federal District Court seeking an injunction to force the UMW to bargain with the Southern operators.

The previous night, actor Tyrone Power was awarded an honorary doctor of humanities by the University of Tampa in Florida.

In Palm Springs, California, the Powder Puff air race to Miami was underway, as five planes took off to make the 2,600-mile journey.

In Jamestown, N.Y., a light bulb ignited a lampshade which then caught a curtain and window sash on fire, burning through a cord holding up a mirror which then crashed, alerting the family having dinner downstairs. The fire was then extinguished in time to prevent serious damage.

In Charlotte, C. W. Gilchrist was named chairman of the public solicitation committee, charged with organizing quotas for charitable campaigns in the city.

Goode Construction Co. had been awarded the contract to construct the new Sears, Roebuck retail store to be built at N. Tryon and N. College Streets. The building would have over 100,000 square feet of retail space, the equivalent of several city blocks, attracting thousands of new shoppers to the city.

Be sure and attend the grand opening a year hence. You won't regret it.

On the editorial page, "Let the Reds Brand Themselves" finds that if the Senate passed the Mundt-Nixon bill, already passed by the House, it would do the nation a disservice and even create a danger to civil liberties.

A majority of the Senate Judiciary Committee appeared to find a Communist menace under foreign control in the country, that the pending bill was Constitutional and could be enforced.

It agrees that there was such a menace, but wonders at the Constitutionality of the measure and whether it could be enforced. The Communist Party had said that it would not obey the law and would not fight in a war between the U.S. and Russia, a notion which the piece finds treasonable. The Communists would, however, move underground to avoid enforcement of the law. Passing laws against treason would not work to eradicate it.

The editorial rests on faith in the common sense of the American people to find a self-negating philosophy in Communism.

We note that the column for the first time includes Mr. Nixon's name as co-author of the bill, the first time his name appeared in the column. It would not be the last.

"T. T. Allison, Good Citizen" tells of the passing of another leading citizen of Charlotte who lad lived in the city since 1900. Mr. Allison was a leader on the Chamber of Commerce and had been a member of the City Council and mayor pro tempore.

"Home Folks Endorse Mr. Vogler" tells of Charlotte's Jim Vogler, member of the General Assembly, failing to win the Democratic nomination to be State Treasurer, but in the process winning more votes in Charlotte than any other candidate on the ballot.

A piece from the Asheville Citizen, titled "Graduate Business School", finds the Richmond Times-Dispatch asking why Virginia was sending its young men to Harvard to obtain training in business. North Carolina had asked the same question. The answer given by UNC was to inaugurate a campaign to raise a million dollars to establish a first-rate school of business administration. Virginia had likewise responded.

It finds both pursuits laudable but likely to result in duplication of services to the region.

Sumner Welles, former Undersecretary of State until August, 1943, tells of portentous signs of pending trouble in the Caribbean, as evidenced by the recent revolution in Costa Rica. The former Government of Dr. Calderon Guardia had been the first in Latin America to declare war on the Axis. He had recently lost in the winter elections, but the Costa Rican Congress had declared the results void for fraud, stimulating a revolution leading to governance at present by a military junta. The present leader, Jose Figueres, had been accused during the war of serving as a front for German interests. Despite the revolt having been rationalized as anti-Communist, the Communist leader, who fled the country during the revolution, had consulted with Sr. Figueres and made a deal whereby he could return soon.

The new leader was also welcoming to Costa Rica opponents of the constitutional governments of Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador, opponents who were recruiting military forces to start revolutions in those countries.

Guatemala would resist any such tendency. In Panama, a recent presidential election had upset matters. There was political conflict also in Cuba. The Dominican Republic claimed that Guatemala and Venezuela were conspiring to overthrow its Government. And the political situation in Colombia was deteriorating.

Only effective measures of cooperation sponsored by the U.S. could counter these destabilizing forces and they had not yet been initiated.

In a showdown between the U.S. and Russia, the situation in the Caribbean would lend itself to subversive influences. The U.S. needed to move fast within the Organization of American States to bring stability to the region.

Drew Pearson addresses an open letter to Josef Stalin in which he suggests allowing a Friendship Train to come to Russia for its children, as the trains which had gone to France and Italy the previous November and December, delivering much needed food and clothing for the winter. Mr. Pearson asserts that the only certain way to avert war between the two nations was for the people to get to know one another and that such a train would facilitate that effort by breaking down the barriers of suspicion and distrust raised by the iron curtain. He assures that such a train would be apolitical, with the sole intent of breaking down the cold war isolation.

He adds that if Russia resisted the invitation, it would demonstrate to Europe that it was Russia, not the U.S., fomenting war. Such a train would enable the Russian people to understand that Americans were not warmongers but genuine believers in interpersonal friendship. It was not easy, he concludes, to make war between people who understood one another.

Joseph Alsop tells of Secretary of State Marshall having lost his control of foreign policy with respect to Palestine in recent days, as the White House and the DNC had taken over, a return to a policy which had prevailed until a few months earlier. The change occurred when Maj. General John Hilldring was appointed to be State Department adviser on Palestine.

Both Secretary Marshall and Undersecretary Robert Lovett had opposed immediate announcement by the President of official recognition of Israel. Both favored recognition but only after apprising the British and other allies. The desire to placate American Zionists and beat the Russians to the punch had led to the decision for quick recognition. Neither was the Secretary consulted when the President met with new Israeli President Chaim Weizmann.

New York Democratic leaders Paul Fitzpatrick and Ed Flynn had told the President that he had to choose between reversing his Palestine reversal on partition or lose the New York delegation at the Democratic convention. Moreover, David Niles, White House liaison with the Zionists, had threatened to resign unless the policy were changed.

Several American diplomats had threatened to tender their resignations in the wake of these troubles, but had been persuaded by Secretary Marshall to remain. It was also possible that Secretary Marshall had warned the President of potential trouble with Britain over the moves.

None of it reflected negatively or positively on the substance of the policy toward Palestine. "The Palestine problem presents a choice, not between good and evil, but between evil, more evil and most evil."

Marquis Childs tells of the 80th Congress likely to conclude having appropriated more money in peacetime for defense than any other previous Congress. Meanwhile, penny pinching had transpired elsewhere, inclusive of the State Department budget. Peace was being starved as the budget for war was being expanded. While Russia displayed in its annual May Day parade new and faster aircraft and the largest tank ever produced, the Russian people, it was plain, did not want war. And the recent misinterpretation by the Russians of the note to Foreign Commissar V. M. Molotov by Ambassador Walter Beedle Smith had at least given voice to those peaceful desires on both sides.

Mr. Childs believes it a mistake to chalk up the Russian misinterpretation and the reply of Prime Minister Stalin to the letter of Henry Wallace as mere propaganda. Nor could the Politburo entirely ignore public opinion in Russia. The recent Soviet "peace offensive", as it came to be called in the State Department, may have been as much for its home consumption as a part of the ongoing strategy of relations with the U.S.

Moreover, the Kremlin might not want to send troops into Western Europe as Soviet officers had been deserting from the German occupation zone into the British and U.S. sectors. The regular soldiers might also have done so were it not for the fact that they were closely supervised and locked in their barracks at night.

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