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.