Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the State
Department had ruled formally that Oksana Kosenkina, the Russian
school teacher who had jumped from the third floor of the Russian
consulate in New York to escape captivity, was beyond the control of
the Soviet Government as long as she remained in the country. The
Russian Consul-General had claimed that Ms. Kosenkina remained in
the technical custody of the consulate while recovering from her
injuries in Roosevelt Hospital. The State Department stated that the
wishes of the individual were paramount. Ms. Kosenkina had asked to
remain in the U.S. The New York judge preparing to rule in the case
said that his judgment would be governed by the State Department's
legal opinion.
President Truman stated that other Soviet citizens would be
provided asylum in the U.S. if they wished to stay.
Ms. Kosenkina was reported to be improving from her injuries
after having been reported in a declining state during the previous
night.
The President said that the Government's loyalty program,
confidentially investigating employees in sensitive positions, had
been a complete success and that the hearings on Capitol Hilly-Dilly
had produced no information not in the possession of the FBI.
Implying that HUAC had used Gestapo-like tactics, he said that the
Committee had infringed the Bill of Rights in the conduct of its
hearings into the Communist espionage activities by Government
personnel. He said that the only two persons whose names had been
mentioned as suspected Communists had already been placed on
indefinite leave prior to the start of the hearings. He reaffirmed
that the confidential results of the loyalty investigations would
remain private and not made available to Congress, as sought by the
Senate Investigating Committee chaired by Homer Ferguson of
Michigan.
HUAC did not hold a hearing this date.
In Berlin, an angry crowd of about 600 Germans stoned two
Soviet sector police officers who had pursued alleged black
marketeers nearly into the British and American zones. It was
reported that one person was killed and another wounded.
Governor Dewey appeared ready to back a program of strong
farm subsidies to maintain prices at parity. Senator Alben Barkley,
Democratic vice-presidential candidate, speaking in Springfield,
Ill., said that farmers could choose between Democratic high prices
or Republican low prices.
President Truman said, when asked by a member of the press, that
he liked Governor Dewey and had enjoyed friendly meetings with him
in the past.
In Shelby, N.C., the Sheriff said that he would charge with murder
the man who had been involved in a love triangle with a fifteen-year
old and claimed that his jealous wife caught them in bed and shot
her to death and wounded him. Another man, who owned the house where
the murder took place, was also charged with complicity in the
murder.
Also in Shelby, a two-year old boy was run over and killed by
his brother, 11, trying to drive the family car while their parents
were away.
Nancy Brame Dumbell of The News tells of the
possibility looming that retarded children in Charlotte might have a
second class established to teach them. One class was already set to
open at the Christ Episcopal Church in September, limited to ages 11
to 15. The new class would allow younger children, ages six to ten,
to participate.
All children ought receive only a first class education.
On the editorial page, "Democratic Harmony in N.C." tells of the new chairman of the North Carolina Democratic executive
committee, Capus Waynick, who had managed the campaign for Kerr
Scott, the Democratic nominee for Governor. Mr. Waynick had also
backed former Governor Melville Broughton for the Senate, also a
successful campaign. A major supporter of losing gubernatorial
candidate Charles Johnson was elected to become secretary,
indicative of party unity. The Dixiecrats seemed to be forgotten.
"'As the Lesser of Two Evils'" tells of the
Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Church having urged all
Christians to rise up against Communism. It would embolden those
politicians who wanted to settle things with Russia by force. The
Conference condemned war while also recognizing that some wars had
to be conducted as the lesser of two evils. Other religious groups
made no distinction between defensive and aggressive warfare and so
would criticize the Anglican position.
It concludes that the Anglican Church was confused
politically. The issue was not between Communism and war to defeat
it. Rather, the choice was between war and peace. If Christians or
anyone else were to delude themselves into believing that war could
defeat Communism, they would have chosen the greater evil. Another
war would merely spread the totalitarian Communist ideal further, as
it thrived on war.
The one hope for Christianity and democracy was in
preservation of peace. The task of Christian statesmanship was to
show that the Western world could win through moral force and good
will, not by waging war.
"'The Voice' and the Echo" finds the fact that
the Russians were seeking to jam Voice of America broadcasts to
Eastern Europe and Russia to be a sign of the effectiveness of those
broadcasts.
James Farley, former FDR kingmaker and DNC chairman, now a public relations
man for Coca-Cola, had recently told of the high regard in foreign
countries for American-made products.
It ventures that American-made products were the result of
the integrity and skill of the country. Those products proved better
than VOA that Americans meant business and were not talking through
their hats.
A piece from the Asheville Citizen, titled "Southern
Research Can Fill Gap", informs that in Birmingham, the
trustees of the Southern Research Institute had voted to construct a
$200,000 laboratory and improve their present facility. The
Institute had small beginnings in 1944, with but three employees. It
now employed 88 persons, with 95 expected by the end of the year.
The expansion aided the textile and wood waste industries, as well
as others.
It posits that industrial research could fill the gap of
disparity between the South, having, in 1945, only 298 of the 2,300
industrial research laboratories in the nation while also having a
third of the population, 40 percent of its land in farms, and
supplying 61 percent of the nation's petroleum and 46 percent of its
lumber products, yet with only 17 percent of the national banks and
ten percent of national savings on deposit, 24 percent of property
values, 21 percent of electric power, 15 percent of manufacturers,
and supplying 13 percent of exports.
Robert Allen, substituting for vacationing Drew Pearson,
tells of the President having made a moving speech in which he urged
employers to hire the handicapped. (Mr. Allen had lost an arm during
the war.) Yet, while he made the speech, the Army was ignoring a
pool of officer talent among the handicapped who could help fill the
Army's expressed need for additional officers to conduct training of
draftees. Instead, the Army was considering drafting the officers.
The handicapped officers were considered unfit for field duty and so
put out to pasture. But the immediate need was for training
personnel, not field officers.
General Eisenhower, as chief of staff, had issued an order
enabling disabled non-commissioned officers to enlist for limited
duty. Mr. Allen urges the President to get the Pentagon to do what
he was asking private employers to do, either voluntarily or by
executive order.
Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, vacationing in his
home state of Oregon, had been asked by the people of Joseph, Ore.,
to lead the parade of a rodeo and Justice Douglas had agreed. He
rode a horse named Cyclone. When Justice Douglas asked whether he
had bucked recently, he was informed that it had not since the last
parade.
Dwight Griswold was quitting as aid administrator for Greece.
The former Nebraska Governor wanted to take part in the election on
behalf of the GOP and hoped to be appointed to the Dewey cabinet.
He had made some progress in getting reforms in the Greek
Government, toward greater efficiency and honesty. But its budget
was not balanced yet and it remained inefficient.
He had been unable to stop a State Department-approved deal
whereby 100 Liberty ships were sold to Greek shipowners for a third
of their original cost, to improve the dollar position of Greece.
But it turned out only to be a boondoggle benefiting the wealthy
royalist Greeks who live in New York and paid little taxes in either
the U.S. or Greece. Aside from the low price, they were also given
special terms of credit with seventeen years to repay the loans. The
Greek Government had to guarantee the mortgages. Shipping experts
estimated that each of the ships were earning $1,000 per day. Yet,
the Greek Government collected only $15,000 per year in taxes from
the shipowners. He concludes that it showed how the State Department
was aiding the "dollar position" in Greece.
Marquis Childs, still in McCall, Idaho, discusses further
election-year politics, telling of riding a horse into the vast
wilderness of the Payette National Forest, apart from any sign of
civilization, enabling perception of what the early pioneers saw as
they crossed the vast stretches to the West. The trek caused him to
appreciate the land resource so crucial to the Western states.
Bernard DeVoto had contended that the West would become a
desert in another century if farm and grazing land were allowed to
be developed unabated. The Forest Service was the guardian of the
land. The constant enemy was fire, as well as insect infestation.
The party with whom he had gone riding passed through miles
of felled lodgepole pine killed by timber beetles, adding to the
fire hazard.
Westerners sometimes despaired that conservation was a losing
battle and that the sheep and cattle might as well be allowed to
graze freely to get the most from the land. Fully 85 percent of the
virgin timber in Idaho was gone.
There was a growing sentiment for conservation among farmers,
ranchers, sportsmen and conservationists, as strong as the pioneer
spirit in the West for limitless exploitation.
DeWitt MacKenzie tells of nine of the eleven nations
comprising the U.N. Arms Commission having reached the conclusion
that the world was not ready for arms reduction, that international
tensions first had to be ended. Only Russia and the Ukraine
objected, favoring disarmament. The West wanted agreement on atomic
control, an international police force to enforce control, and
finally signing of peace treaties with Germany and Japan.
Britain's Field Marshal Viscount Bernard Montgomery had
recently told Britons in a speech that avoiding war was best
achieved by being prepared, urging 150,000 volunteers for the
British equivalent to the National Guard to supplement regular
British forces. He had found the extant situation to be more of a
truce than a true peace.
One could not disarm while fighting a war, even if not a
shooting war, per the case of the cold war. The Bolshevist
revolution was the only major aggression on the scene and it was
therefore ironic that Russia was pressing for disarmament. Such, he
posits, would play into the hands of the Soviets.
Disarmament under the circumstances would constitute suicidal
appeasement of the Russians. Only if the Communists called off the
cold war would disarmament become a sound policy.
A letter from the Republican candidate for Congress in the
Sixth District of Florida suggests that states' rights and civil
rights were not incompatible. He believes that laws against racial
discrimination could only work in states where there was enough
popular support to secure enactment of such laws. So he favored
working within the states for passage of state laws to promote equal
rights. He says that he was founding a committee to promote
discussion of public affairs in the press and on the radio. Anyone
who wished to join could write to him.
A letter from a registered nurse remarks on the polio
epidemic in North Carolina, with parents still taking their children
to movies and other public places, despite the risk of spread of the
crippling disease. Too few people were contributing to the March of
Dimes Fund. Some counties had stopped Sunday schools from operating
but the parents still took the children to the movies and other
public places. She warns against the conduct.
