Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the U.N. Security
Council the previous night had ordered the war in Palestine to end,
giving three days to obey the ceasefire order or face U.N. force to
bring it about. It ordered also an unconditional ceasefire in
Jerusalem effective by this night and demilitarization of the city.
The vote was 7 to 1, with Syria opposed and Russia, the Ukraine, and
Argentina abstaining. The British said that they were not declaring
in the resolution any fault by the Arabs as the aggressors in the
conflict.
Israel was expected to comply, but the Arabs were not.
Failure would lead to a decision by the Security Council to use
either economic sanctions, diplomatic sanctions or international
military force to enforce the determination.
Count Folke Bernadotte, the U.N. mediator, prepared to return
to Rhodes in Greece to resume talks regarding a permanent solution.
Israelis attacked Cairo for the first time the previous
night, precipitating angry anti-Jewish demonstrations outside
Alazhar Mosque. Egyptians again attacked Tel Aviv by air. Iraelis
smashed Iraqi resistance at Tireh, four miles south of Haifa,
eliminating the last threat to the supply road between Tel Aviv and
Haifa. Arabs admitted suffering 26 killed and 37 wounded and claimed
hundreds of Jews killed in a Jewish attack on Nazareth. There was
heavy fighting in western Galilee in the battle for Shajra, north of
Nazareth, with Lebanese troops retaining the village after warding
off Jewish attacks.
The United States Embassy in London said that two groups of
60 B-29's were en route from Rapid City, S.D., and MacDill Field in
Florida to Britain for temporary duty to increase the European air
forces under the command of Lt. General Curtis LeMay. They would be
stationed at Waddington, Marham, and Scampton, England, all large
RAF bases. About 30 B-29's were already present in Germany. The
length of the rotational visits had been extended from three or four
weeks to about three months.
The new jet fighters, the first to be deployed in Europe,
were also slated to join the existing complement of 75 World War II
fighter planes.
The Russians warned the Americans and British that Soviet
fighter planes would be training in the air corridors through which
the West was transporting supplies to Berlin during the hours of
7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Dang, we're gon' get us a war with them Rooskies yet. Who
better to deliver it than Curt LeMay? We got 'em covered. Hit one of
those buzzards and let's get it over with 'fore they get the atom
bomb and hit us. Turnabout's fair play.
In London, the Council of Atomic Scientists Association
announced that it had given up hope for effecting international
control of atomic energy as long as the cold war persisted.
Soviet deputy foreign commissar Andrei Gromyko departed New
York for Moscow this date, saying that he hoped that he would not
return.
Sorry, but we have a feeling that you will be back.
Iceland was scheduled to receive ERP aid totaling 2.3 million
dollars with eight more loans totaling 700 million to other
unidentified nations under consideration by ERP administrator Paul
Hoffman.
Angry Republican members of the 80th Congress said that in
the special session which the President was calling for July 26,
there might be investigations launched of the Administration.
Some Democrats, mostly Southerners, also voiced opposition.
Senator Olin Johnston of South Carolina said that he intended to
seek to have the Congress adjourn as soon as it convened. Such a
motion would not be debatable. If the Senate approved the
adjournment, it would have to reconvene in three days unless the
House also approved the measure.
Senator Alben Barkley, vice-presidential nominee, backed the
President's call of the special session, labeling it "courageous".
Governor Dewey made no comment on the call.
In Birmingham, dissident Democrats, rebelling against the
civil rights plank of the party and the President's civil rights
program endorsed by the plank, went forward with their plans to
nominate their own Dixiecrat ticket, though admitting that they had
no chance of winning the election. Some predicted the ticket would
attract a solid Southern electoral bloc of 127 votes. Governor
Fielding Wright of Mississippi led the group, having led the
Mississippi delegation in walking out of the convention. He declared
that their main purpose was to defeat President Truman and regain
control of the party for "regular Democrats", claiming
that the big city bosses had taken control at Philadelphia. Some of
the Dixiecrats expressed hope to send the election into the House by
preventing an electoral majority for either party.
A new poll conducted by Elmo Roper showed that the
Dewey-Warren ticket was well ahead of the President, though taken
between the conventions with the assumption that the President would
be the Democratic nominee.
U.S. Steel and the Steelworkers agreed to an average 13-cent
hourly pay raise, and in response, the firm also announced a price
rise in steel to meet the added cost of labor. Steel workers
presently earned an average of $1.55 per hour. The price rise ended
U.S. Steel's effort to keep prices down by refusing to grant a third
round of wage increases.
Ford announced a raise for 25,000 salaried employees.
In New York, Mel Ott resigned as the manager of the New York
Giants baseball team and Leo Durocher, manager of the Brooklyn
Dodgers, was named his successor. Burt Shotton, who had pinch-hit
for Mr. Durocher when he had been suspended by Major League Baseball
commissioner Happy Chandler the previous year and led the club to
the pennant, succeeded Mr. Durocher who had been manager of the
Dodgers since 1939. Mr. Ott had managed the Giants since 1942,
having become a player at age 16 for the club in 1923. He would
remain with the Giants in another undetermined capacity.
The Philadelphia Phillies dismissed manager Ben Chapman and
named Allen Cooke as acting manager.
On the editorial page, "Truman's Call Is a Blunder" dreads the approach of Turnip Day, July 26, the date on which the President had
called a special session of Congress to convene. The piece believes
he had shown lack of restraint in so doing and that the Congress
would likely resist the attempt at "government by the shouting
crowd". Even the President's own party was not backing him and
the special session would likely only increase the party rift so
apparent at the convention. He appeared to be using the power only
to present his legislative agenda to the people anew to try to
obtain re-election.
"Tar Heels Stay with Party" tells of North
Carolina having cast 13 of its 32 delegate votes for the President,
representing a departure from the trend in Dixie, a departure which
some might regard as desertion. Georgia, Virginia, Texas and other
Southerners had voted for Senator Richard Russell, as had 19 of the
North Carolinians, including delegation leader Senator Clyde Hoey.
The North Carolina vote, it ventures, would have a depressing effect
on the Dixiecrat convention in Birmingham set to begin the following
day. The fact of non-unanimity in the movement suggested that a
growing number of Southerners regarded the revolt as finished.
Senator Russell, himself, said he would not attend the
meeting. Only the Alabama delegation and half of the Mississippi
delegation had walked out of the convention, not the four predicted
state delegations.
The delegates had voted 651.5 to 562.5 for the minority civil
rights plank introduced by Mayor Hubert Humphrey, which endorsed the
President's civil rights program, worse for the Southerners than the
plank for which they had originally sought the floor debate to defeat,
one not mentioning the President's program or any of the ten parts of it. The
delegates voted 925 to 309 against the Dixiecrats' states' rights
plank. The trend was thus running toward Federal assertion of power
and against states' rights.
The North Carolina defectors from the revolt could be viewed
not as deserters but rather as shifting the ground of the fight to
within the party to enable the South to regain leadership of the
party, recognizing that the region's isolation would only increase
following the way of the bolters.
We note parenthetically a second historical mistake in the traditional way of examining the Dixiecrat revolt from afar in time. Not only did the bolters not walk out of the Democratic convention in direct response to the speech by Mayor Hubert Humphrey introducing the civil rights minority plank, rather after a months-long carefully planned strategy against the February 2 call for the civil rights program by the President, to which the adoption of the minority plank at the convention was actually only incidental, but also the walkout was not led by Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and was not en masse by the Southerners. Rather, the actual walkout was limited, as indicated in the piece, to one and a half delegations and led by Governor Wright. South Carolinians were not involved. Governor Thurmond, however, had been a leading spokesperson for the Dixiecrat strategy in the months since the February 2 enunciation of the program by the President and the calling by the Southerners of the Florida meeting a few days later, and, of course, would be the presidential nominee of the Dixiecrats, with Governor Wright as the vice-presidential nominee. Through time, historians and commentators have managed to lose the details and attribute the walkout to Governor Thurmond in direct response to Mayor Humphrey's speech.
"Soliloquy for a Rainy Day" tells of city rain
being different from country rain, the former being gray and gusty
and the latter being clean and smelling fresh. The sound was
different, too, more peaceful in the country.
Chicago rain was cold and hit as thin needles, sometimes
almost horizontally blown by the wind. Miami had big, fat, very wet
rain. El Paso had angry bucketfuls, turned on and off as a faucet.
Seattle rains were cold and thin as those of Chicago, but steadier.
San Francisco had invisible rain, peppering through the fog.
The editors obviously had only limited experience with the
latter, as it will blow you off your feet in a deluge around
Thanksgiving and onward at times, making sissy North Carolina rains,
save in hurricanes, seem as child's play. You will also need an ark
in winter, that is, when there is no drought. They probably visited
in summer or early fall when there usually is no rain save a rare mild
sprinkle of the type they describe.
It asks what kind of rain the reader liked, to take their
choice.
If you have car trouble though on a North Carolina mountain
and you have to walk ten miles down to the local village in it for
remedy, it doesn't matter to you whether it's gusty and unpleasant
or fresh and clean. It's still bone-soaking wet.
A piece from the Louisville Courier-Journal, titled
"Here Comes Another Long", remarks on the Senate
campaign of Russell Long, son of Huey. Earl Long, the brother of the
assassinated Governor and Senator, was Governor of Louisiana.
Russell was running on his father's reputation among Louisianans,
claiming himself to be a defender of the common people against the
powerful interests. He played to their suspicions held against
outsiders and the fear of the unknown.
He would play all the angles including white supremacy,
something his father did not do.
Huey Long had been a man of real ability and might have been
a great leader were it not for his character flaws, using his great
abilities to promote himself rather than Louisiana.
Soon, the piece concludes, the people could see whether Russell Long had the
ability of his father and the character which he had lacked.
Drew Pearson tells of the Democratic Party dying at the
convention in Philadelphia during the week. The President had
refused to call in a surgeon for the patient, sat serenely confident
in victory despite the contrary odds. Mr. Pearson says that he
returned to Washington early because he could stand to see a person
die.
Some highly placed U.S. civilian officials wanted General
Lucius Clay to use force to break the Berlin blockade by using an
armed food train with a contingent of engineers aboard for repairing
any blown up tracks and the Elbe River bridge. Some officials
believed that Russia would do anything to avoid war. General Clay
did not agree and had rejected the advice, believing that once such
a skein of events would be set in motion, it could quickly get out
of control. He favored economic sanctions against the Russians.
Mr. Pearson notes that General Clay was a protege of former
Secretary of State James Byrnes, a great believer in persuasion
rather than force to accomplish things.
British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin had inspired the joint
tripartite note from the Western powers to Russia in protest of the
blockade. His advisers had formulated the draft and he then showed
it to the French and American Ambassadors to Britain. The French
rewrote the note in milder language, a version which the U.S.
approved.
Home delivery of Coca-Cola had been suspended in Berlin
because of gasoline rationing. CARE packages sold for 2,500 marks on
the black market, a month's salary for a German white-collar worker.
DeWitt MacKenzie tells of all of Italy and much of Europe
feeling the impact of the attempted assassination of Italian
Communist leader Palmiro Togliatti. The Communist press demanded the
resignation of Premier Alcide de Gasperi and wildcat strikes
abounded in its wake. The immediate result was advantageous to the
Russians, as Mr. Togliatti was a martyr even if he survived—as
he would.
The French Communists charged that the shooting was a plot by
imperialist warmongers and their agents.
The Communists would likely exploit the shooting as much as
they could, short of provoking war. But they might start something
they would be unable to stop. To take the risk of starting a
revolution in Italy could backfire against the Communists.
Temporarily, the Togliatti matter had diverted attention from
the Berlin blockade.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop, in Philadelphia, tell of the
Democrats being bankrupt both politically and financially, most of
the funds on hand being already obligated, leaving about $80,000 in
actual spending money. The fat cats were not donating.
In 1944, most of the money was raised in a sort of continuous
cocktail party in DNC chairman Robert Hannegan's New York hotel
suite, where checks were signed in the bathroom, amid the plumbing.
(At least they did not have a Plumbers' Unit for plugging leaks at
the White House.) A large group of those 1944 contributors were now
alienated over Palestine. Mr. Hannegan was in retirement. And the
present committee had hit the large contributors first rather than
keeping them in reserve until the end as in 1944. Those contributors
were giving only a fraction of their earlier contributions.
A single tour by the President was estimated to cost over a
million dollars. Added to that would be commercial airtime on the
radio.
The Atlanta Constitution had reported that the big oil
companies had supplied the money for the Dixiecrat convention in
Birmingham. The implication was that the money was being provided in
furtherance of the agenda to have the tidelands oil reserves turned
back to the states for lease to private concerns, a position which
the Truman Administration had actively opposed, opposition the Supreme Court
had upheld.
The Associated Press reviews editorial opinion on the
nomination of the President.
The Nashville Tennessean applauded the choice, saying
that respect for the President had grown immensely for standing by
his principles.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer saw it as emblematic of the
disunity of the party that they chose a candidate not pleasing to
any of the separate groups within it, possibly meaning the end of
the party.
The Indianapolis Star found the ticket to be a
reaffirmation of the New Deal, giving the people a chance to vote on
the 16-year record. The fight over the platform, it ventured, had
weakened the party and insured a Republican victory in the fall.
The Newark Star-Ledger said that the President
emerged stronger and more popular from the convention than prior to
it. Emerging from the party revolts had gone a long way to redeem
him from the charge of lack of leadership.
The Baltimore Sun found the big city bosses'
efforts to dump the President to constitute an episode of which no
one could be proud, but in the debate on the civil rights program,
the party had acquitted itself well in a democratic debate on the
subject.
The Miami Herald found the Republicans to have
placed emphasis on youth while the Democrats gave the nod to
experience and older New Dealers. The President and Senator Barkley
could make the case well for the sixteen years of Democratic rule,
but the Dewey-Warren ticket likewise could attack it.
The Salt Lake City Tribune found that while the
President had little chance of being elected, smear squads of other
parties would be shamed or suppressed.
The Syracuse Post-Standard found that the
President was entitled to the nomination as the leader of the party,
that it was not his fault if the Democrats were not big enough to
place their party first. It believed that the Truman-Barkley ticket
would make a good team.
The New York Times posited that the Southerners
battling over civil rights were taking issue with one of the more
praiseworthy stands of the President during his term. Both the Henry
Wallace third party and the Southerners would take votes from the
President through no fault of his own leadership. He still had a
chance, with independent voters having yet to make up their minds,
though at long odds.
The Atlanta Journal found the courage the
President had shown in his address while under bitter attack to have
won new friends and recaptured those who were on the verge of
deserting. Senator Russell's leadership of the Southern faction
served to settle the Southern revolt in a democratic way.
The Mobile Press found the nomination an
affront to the dignity of the South and a threat to the Southern way
of life, that the civil rights plank was as anti-Southern as the
Republican plank.
The Chattanooga Times found that the party
would have sealed its doom had it rejected the President, even
though he had little chance to win.
The Buffalo Courier-Express said that the
American people would not elect Mr. Truman over the abler and more
enlightened Thomas Dewey, that their greatest confidence in the
President lay in the foreign policy, for which the Republicans were as much responsible as the Democrats.
