Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the military
commander of the British zone of Germany, General Sir Brian
Robertson, demanded that the Russians lift the land blockade which
they had imposed on traffic from the West to Berlin. Saying that the
measure was unrelated to currency restrictions, he added that the
Russians would be responsible for the suffering of the German people
consequent of the move. He said that the British would remain in
Berlin, dovetailing the previous day's statement of General Lucius
Clay, military governor of the American zone.
The Russians had extended the food blockade from the Russian
zone to brown coal, in addition to halting all freight shipments
from the Western zones.
The U.S. began flying drugs into Berlin and announced plans
to fly in condensed milk for German babies. The British were sending
food barges, one of which had arrived with 300 tons of grain and
flour.
In Israel, the Israeli Government was provided approval by
the U.N. to push a convoy through Egyptian resistance and, pursuant
thereto, had directed the Israeli general staff to take "suitable"
action. The convoy, bound for the Negeb, had been stopped by the
Egyptians the previous day. An Egyptian pilot also shot at a white
U.N. truce-commission plane piloted by an American. U.N. mediator
Count Folke Bernadotte protested both incidents. The Egyptians
initially explained that they did not think that stopping the convoy
was a truce violation and that the pilot shot at the plane thinking
it an enemy plane.
Secretary of the Army Kenneth Royall said that eighteen fully
armed and trained mobile striking force divisions, six of which
would be National Guard, were planned for the Army by the end of
1949. The twelve regular divisions would double the present mobile
force. Half would remain stateside. The only domestic division
presently near full strength was the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort
Bragg, N.C. Divisions at Fort Lewis, Wash., Camp Hood, Tex., and
Fort Benning, Ga., would be brought to full strength. A new division
would be created at Camp Campbell, Ky., and a new airborne division
would be created at a location yet to be determined.
In Greece, a heavy guerrilla attack destroyed a main supply
road for the Greek Army troops between Elasson and Kozane. Sixteen
guerrillas had been killed as the Army lost 11 killed and 20 wounded
or missing. Fighting also continued around Nestorion where 31
guerrillas had been killed and 20 taken prisoner.
In Rome, a Communist-directed food workers' strike began,
with 250,000 leaving their jobs. Notwithstanding, most commercial
stores and markets remained open. The workers made spaghetti, flour,
bread, ice, pastries, dried and condensed milk and packaged foods.
William Green, president of the AF of L said that his labor
organization would not support the Dewey-Warren Republican ticket in
November. The organization had never supported any presidential
candidate except Robert La Follette in 1924. He made no commitment
of support for President Truman.
The Teamsters stated that they might not go along with the
opposition to the Dewey-Warren ticket.
Agreements reached the previous day in the steel, coal, and
electrical industries gave wage boosts to workers. Alcoa and
Westinghouse agreed to raise wages, the former ten to eighteen cents
and the latter, nine to sixteen cents, following the coal settlement
in which a dollar per day increase was allowed, resulting in an
estimated hike in price of from 75 cents to a dollar per ton of
coal. There was still no settlement, however, in the captive coal
mines, owned by the steel companies.
In Louisville, Ky., an estimated 20 persons were injured when
23 gasoline storage tanks exploded between 1:20 and 4:00 a.m. at the
Aetna Oil Company plant, sending flames 300 feet into the air. The
cause was as yet undetermined.
In New York, city sanitation workers were digging through
twenty tons of garbage on a scow looking for 1.5 million dollars
worth of reported narcotics in a 45-pound package. Six persons were
being held on narcotics smuggling charges, the drugs allegedly
having been brought in from the Orient by way of Italy.
In Los Angeles, a woman was granted a divorce because her
husband drank too much coffee, 15 to 20 cups per morning.
He was probably a high tension wire-puller.
Governor Dewey predicted victory in November following the
end of the Republican convention the previous day with the
nomination and approval by acclamation of Governor Earl Warren as
the vice-presidential candidate. Representative Hugh Scott of
Pennsylvania became the RNC chairman following his selection by
Governor Dewey for the position, succeeding Carroll Reece of
Tennessee, a supporter of Senator Taft for the nomination.
In the North Carolina gubernatorial run-off primary election
between Kerr Scott and Charles Johnson, voting appeared light
compared to the regular primary of May 29, with expected turnout at
350,000 compared to 423,000 at the earlier election, in which Mr.
Johnson had come out on top by 9,000 votes, but without a majority.
One Congressional race run-off was being held in Lumberton as well.
Emery Wister of The News tells of the sweltering
heatwave in Charlotte, in the nineties for the fourth straight day.
A new record high appeared to have been set for this date, breaking
the previous record of 97.8 degrees set in 1914. The airport weather
station had recorded 98 degrees at 1:10 p.m., with an expected high
of 100. Humidity was relatively low at 37 percent.
Surf's up. Wear your sweaters, grease the sleds, and bundle
knitly.
The previous night was the hottest since August 15, 1943. Mr.
Wister does not impart what occurred to make it so on either
occasion. The first time could have been the result of General
Patton's tirade against the Army Private in Sicily. This time, it
may have had something to do with penguins.
On the editorial page, "Stalin Ignores GOP Warnings" finds the convention speeches issuing warnings to Russia that
further expansion in Europe would not be tolerated. Meanwhile, the
Russians continued during the week their campaign to oust the West
from Berlin.
The Russians were taking the calculated risk that the
presidential campaign would allow them to take bold steps with
impunity, as neither party would be eager to undertake a retaliatory
move which could lead to war prior to the election in November.
The Russians had met in Warsaw with representatives of the
six Eastern European satellites to discuss creation of Eastern
Germany, to counteract the establishment of Western Germany by the
U.S. and the five Western European countries, France, Britain, and the
Benelux nations. The Russians wanted to upset ERP. While the
conference had ended in Warsaw with a declaration that the nations
wanted to try again to agree with the allies regarding a united
Germany, the plan for Eastern Germany was still being considered. It
was possible that this statement was only for propaganda purposes,
to convince the Germans that the Russians wanted unity and that
separation was being forced by the Western nations.
The Republicans appeared to accept the Russian gains thus
far, but also drew a line, such that no further gains would be
tolerated. In consequence, the Russians appeared to be trying to
maximize their gains before the GOP would come into power in
January.
The piece thinks that the Republicans, if they were to gain
the White House, would cool their ardor after the election and
engage in appeasement.
That would probably turn them in the public mind from warners to warreners.
"Dewey and Warren—A Good Team" finds the
ticket of Governors Dewey and Warren, the latter desired as his
running mate in 1944 by Governor Dewey, to have strengthened the
opinion that Mr. Dewey was the ablest political strategist in the
Republican Party.
Governor Warren would strengthen the ticket nationally for
his progressive record in California and its large electoral vote,
probably therefore to go into the Republican column. Moreover, it
was a concession to the West, which had been grumbling about being
neglected politically by both parties. Governor Dewey had also
mollified the West with his extended tour of Oregon in advance of
the primary there in May.
The ticket also was not identified with the struggle in
Congress or the isolationist wing of the party, making it more
difficult for the President to connect the ticket to the failures of
the 80th Congress.
Governor Dewey's acceptance speech had the ring of the start
of a crusade for amity and unity. He could find no better assistant
in that cause than Governor Warren.
California would, incidentally, go to President Truman by 18,000 votes, the difference probably attributable, ironically, to the third-party candidacy of Henry Wallace, siphoning off 190,000 votes, which, in the case of California, were probably more from the Dewey column than the Truman side of the ledger for the fact of the popularity of progressive Governor Warren in the state, among both Republicans and Democrats. But that is intuitive speculation, not subject to easy verification. In any event, the state's 25 electoral votes would not have swung the election. It would have taken at least thirteen more electoral votes, for instance, those of one or a combination of the Southern states which were carried by the President, voting instead for Strom Thurmond's Dixiecrat ticket, such as some combination of Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, or Virginia, to tilt the balance enough to deprive the President of the needed 266 majority electoral votes and thereby throw the election into the House of Representatives, controlled, of course, by the Republicans in 1948.
North Carolina, with 14 votes, could have made the difference in combination with California, but no self-respecting North Carolinian would have ever voted for the likes of Strom Thurmond.
The only other state carried by President Truman which might have been impacted by the Wallace vote was Ohio, decided by 7,000 votes, with Mr. Wallace polling 37,500 votes, but with more of those probably pulled from the President's ticket in that case than from Governor Dewey.
The President would have undoubtedly had a veritable electoral landslide had it not been for the Dixiecrats carrying four Southern states, inevitably taking 39 votes away from the President, as the Solid South in those days was traditionally presumed always to vote Democratic. As it was, with Governor Dewey winning only 189 electoral votes, it was not far from an electoral landslide.
"Bathing Beauties and Penguins" tells of Bishop
John J. Swint of Wheeling, W. Va., assailing beauty contests as
"pagan" and "immoral", as they stressed
"nakedness", their sine qua non for their
raison d'être.
But a judge in Cincinnati had found no violation of the law
in the exhibition of pictures of scantily clad beauties, ruled that
they were "of God's own children" and that there could
be no obscenity in "God's own handiwork".
Some even viewed wearing clothes to be a cause of moral
delinquency, as portrayed in a satire by Anatole France, Penquin
Island, where the penguins lived happily in a state of
nudity, unaware of the need for fig leaves, until someone got them
to start wearing clothes, whereupon they began to think improper
thoughts.
The piece thinks that the bathing beauty contests were quite
alright and that there would be something wrong if they were
abolished.
Soon, that incipient publication, Penguins' Playpen,
will be on the shelves of your local bookstore in the "intellectual
interests" section, should you wish to look into the matter
more thoroughly.
A piece from the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, titled "The
Return to Ruritania", tells of the population, displaced by
the lure of high-paying war jobs, having begun to return to the
farm, as 2.2 million more people lived on farms than at the end of
the war. Farm wages had gone up and modernization had taken place,
along with rural electrification, making it nearly as modern as
suburbia.
High tension wires now abounded.
"The Editors' Roundtable", compiled by James
Galloway of Asheville, examines editorial opinions on President
Truman's recent spate of attacks on Congress during his
cross-country tour. The Davenport (Tenn.) Times
finds the attacks on Congress as the worst in U.S. history and the
counterattacks by Congressmen that the President was the worst in
U.S. history to be part of the American political tradition and not
without truth on both sides. The Atlanta Constitution
finds both the Congress and the President to have played politics on
issues of vital importance, that both were the proverbial pots reflexively
calling the kettles black. The Albuquerque (N.M.) Journal
finds the dignity of both sides lost in the name-calling contest.
The St. Paul Dispatch finds the
President's reference to the Congress as the worst since
Reconstruction to call up unnecessarily the specter of the Civil
War, to remind the South that their quarrel on civil rights was as
much with the Republicans as with the President. The
Philadelphia Evening Bulletin finds the President
dispelling the apathy of Democrats with his attacks on the
Republican Congress. The Dayton Daily News suggests
the President likely to gain from attacking the Congress, the
weak spot of the Republicans. The Peoria (Ill.) Journal
finds the Congress more recently than the
President to have submitted itself to the will of the American
people.
Drew Pearson tells of the Republicans having had a chance at
the convention to erase mistakes made in the Congress, but failing
to do so. The progressives had tried to get around the conservatives
during the platform debate but the conservatives had won. The final
version of the platform was a victory for reactionaries. One such
plank was standing for giving the tidal oil lands to the states,
contrary to the Supreme Court ruling that they belonged to the
Federal Government. Senator Lodge had sought to have the plank read
that the Republicans believed the tidelands should stay with the
Federal Government as the Pacific coastline was vital for defense.
The power lobby had also worked on the platform and gotten
rid of references to support of public power projects, limiting it
to navigation and flood control purposes. Delegate Vernon Romney of
Utah—first cousin to eventual Governor of Michigan George Romney
and second cousin therefore to 2012 Republican nominee Mitt
Romney—had waged an unsuccessful fight to restore the plank.
Federal housing was limited by the real estate interests to support contingent upon
having the states spend the Federal money.
General MacArthur had sought to have Senator Vandenberg
nominate him, as the Senator had been a major backer in 1944. Things
had changed by 1948.
In 1944, the platform favored an independent Palestine. The
1948 platform greeted the new State of Israel but initially did not
state anything about borders or support of the U.N. partition plan.
As a result, Zionist leaders were angry, believing that Senator
Vandenberg, who helped Senator Lodge draft the plank, had consulted
the pro-Arabs of the State Department. After Governor Dewey and
Senator Taft expressed support for a stronger plank and Senator
Irving Ives of New York exhorted the committee to rewrite it, the
plank expressed in the end support of U.N. partition of Palestine.
Marquis Childs, in Philadelphia, tells of the Republican
convention having been anti-climactic, billed as an open convention
in which several candidates could win, it turned out to be more of a
carefully managed stage play. Those supporting Harold Stassen
were especially disappointed, believed that something somewhat
sinister had taken place. Yet, it was in the oldest tradition of
American politics, with behind-the-scenes wire-pulling to put over
the winning nominee. The bosses were of varying backgrounds but they
always knew the political angles and how to work them.
Governor Dewey's managers were very efficient and able,
cutting the chances for an upset to close to nothing. The
requirement for an upset was a popular hero, such as William
Jennings Bryan for the Democrats in 1896 or Wendell Willkie for the
GOP in 1940, a person who could seize the moment, a rarity in
American politics. Only Senator Vandenberg or Governor Stassen could
have fit the bill, and Senator Vandenberg was not cut out for the
role. Governor Stassen's chances faded after the loss to Mr. Dewey
in Oregon, following which he participated in too many compromises
to try to regain lost support.
Moreover, Republicans generally did not like taking chances,
especially in a year where they believed they could win.
But the principal reason for the Dewey success was his able
staff who had been working for this time for years. Mr Childs
concludes that it was all incident to a normal political game,
similar to poker.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop, in Philadelphia, also conclude
that the secret of Governor Dewey's success was his political
organization, of which he sat at the center, with Paul Lockwood as
political secretary, Elliott Bell as brain-truster and speech writer, and James Haggerty, future press secretary to
President Eisenhower, as public relations man. His promoters were
lawyers Herbert Brownell, future Eisenhower Attorney General,
Russell Sprague, and Ed Jaeckle. The chief fund raiser was Harold
Talbott of Chrysler.
The team came to Philadelphia with more than 300 committed
delegates of the 548 needed to nominate. To obtain the difference,
they engaged in horse-trading for promised positions. The most
important deal had occurred with Senator Edward Martin of
Pennsylvania, who would receive a plum in a Dewey Administration.
Likewise, Governors Bradford of Massachusetts and Driscoll of New
Jersey should receive choice positions. Others would obtain
diplomatic posts or departmental undersecretary positions.
The staff had produced rumors regularly during the process
regarding new allies, breaks in delegations, and the like,
manufacturing the news of the convention.
As President, Mr. Dewey would thus likely be competent,
efficient, and ruthless.
A letter writer takes exception to an article appearing in
the newspaper June 21 in which it was asserted by a Catholic priest
that there was freedom of religion in Russian-dominated Poland for
the first time in three centuries, finding Dr. Konstanty Najder, the
subject of the article, to have been misrepresenting the situation,
based on the experience in Poland of the letter writer's husband in
1928 and 1930 and that of her two Polish friends in Charlotte. She
doubts Dr. Najder to be a priest.
A letter writer who describes herself as a Polish-American
says that the foregoing letter was true.
