Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that an informed
diplomatic source had stated that Prime Minister Stalin had proposed
a Big Four conference of financial experts to be held in Berlin
regarding control of the city's currency, the principal problem in
effecting an East-West settlement of the Berlin crisis and ending
the blockade. The Big Three ambassadors to Moscow were considering
the proposal. It suggested that the Soviets might be willing to
agree that the West share in administration of Germany's economy and
continue occupation of the Western sectors, the latter right having
been challenged since the advent of the plan by the West to create a
separate West German government, in turn proposed because of
Russia's prior refusal any longer to cooperate in coordinated four-power
administration of Germany.
On Monday near Coburg, Germany, Russian occupation zone
police had shot and killed a German intelligence agent of the U.S.
Army fleeing across the Soviet zone border, at least a hundred yards
inside the American zone at the time. The AMG stated that the German
had been sent by U.S. Army intelligence officers into the Russian
zone to obtain top secret information.
German police headquarters in West Berlin reported that
persons wearing Russian uniforms wounded a German woman the previous
night at the boundary between West Berlin and the surrounding
Russian occupation zone.
Withdrawal of armed Russian, American, and British guards
from Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, however, eased tensions generally in
the city.
Before HUAC, Alger Hiss and Whittaker Chambers confronted
each other for the first time publicly, having already done so in
two days of hearings held in executive session ten days earlier. Mr.
Hiss was questioned for hours anent the 1929 Model A Ford he claimed
to have given to Mr. Chambers because it was worthless and Mr.
Chambers had no car. Mr. Chambers claimed that the Ford was being
donated by Mr. Hiss to the Communist Party of the West Coast,
normally, said Mr. Chambers, not allowed. The Committee believed
that tracing the ownership of the Ford would resolve the issue, at
least partially, of who was telling the truth—and on the
answer, no doubt, would rest the fate of the nation and the world,
and who would be elected the next President and which party would
control the next Congress, the Good Wholesome Republicans or the
Communists.
Chief Committee investigator Robert Stripling produced a copy
of what he described as a certificate of title showing that Mr. Hiss
signed over the Ford to Cherner Motor Co. of Washington, D.C., on
July 23, 1936, about a year after Mr. Hiss said that he had given
the car or at least provided the use of it to Mr. Chambers, whom he
knew at the time only as George Crosley.
The issue thus obviously becomes whether Cherner, nay, the whole of the Ford Motor Co., of which Cherner was only a constituent part, was, in
fact, an undercover spy operation for a foreign government.
To figure that out, they need obviously to employ the
services, sub rosa, of the man who lived in Chevy Chase.
Toward the conclusion of the day's hearing, Mr. Chambers stated that he did not hate Mr. Hiss for denying his association with him as a Communist. He was not seeking revenge in his testimony, he said. Rather, he claimed to testify against him with "remorse and pity".
—Yeah, Bob, that Ford business was a stroke of genius. People can relate to that. Blue Book values and so forth. Every man who goes in to trade his car will remember and tell his wife...
—Yeah, yeah. The typewriter? That's coming? Yeah, that will be great. That's what we need, something concrete to which everyone can relate. Because if you just sit there and...
—Yeah, everyone falls asleep on ideology.
—That's right. Don't even know what it means. But if you get them to understand in simple, concrete terms, then they will follow. And if you can catch him in a lie about the Ford, why, it's concrete, you see.
—Yeah, perfectly clear. Now, what about that pumpkin or whatever it was that you had going?
—No, you know. You had mentioned something about a pumpkin and Halloween.
—Yeah, that was it. That will be good. Let's do that, and before the election if at all possible.
—No, I don't think so. They won't think anything of it, as a ruse or trick, electioneering. No. They will just see it as it should be seen, lies of these liberals, Communist types...
—Office of Price Administration, yeah.
—Okay, Bob. Stay on it. Best to the Missus.
Oksana Kosenkina, 42, the Russian teacher who had jumped from
the third-story window of the Russian consulate in New York to escape its
"cage", gave her first interview in Roosevelt Hospital
while recovering from her injuries in the fall. She said that she
had jumped to escape, not to commit suicide. She did not wish to
return to Russia. She knew that she would not be able to escape in
Russia any more than the Consul-General and staff were allowing her
freedom from the consulate. So she had jumped.
She said that Consul-General Yakov Lomakin had told her to
tell the press certain things after the Russians had taken her back
from the Tolstoy Foundation in Valley Cottage, N.Y. He told her she
would be a heroine.
Her husband had been killed in Leningrad during the war, in
early 1942. During her two years in the U.S. as a teacher to
children of members of the Russian delegation to the U.N., she had
become increasingly dissatisfied with life in Russia. She had been
deemed an enemy of the state and persecuted in picayune ways, to
which she protested by failing to appear on several occasions at the
school in New York for Russian children.
The Russian Vice-Consul, meanwhile, had left the consulate
for good, he said, on this afternoon.
President Truman formally revoked, as requested by the State
Department, the credentials of Mr. Lomakin, already preparing to
depart for Moscow, albeit claimed as a trip scheduled for six weeks,
confirmed by the Swedish shipping company providing passage as far
as Gothenburg.
Secretary of State Marshall indicated that the U.S. would
accept Russia's plan for the closing of the American consulate in
Vladivostok, an inconsequential matter, he said, because the
American Consul there had already very limited activities. Moscow,
in conjunction with closing its own consulates in New York and San
Francisco, had also canceled a 1947 agreement to reopen the American
consulate at Leningrad. Secretary Marshall said that no progress had
been made on that reopening anyway.
Oh no. They've got the bomb; we're going to war. We'll all be
dead in a matter of weeks if not days, if not hours, if not minutes,
nanoseconds. It won't any longer matter if you lost your doggie or
your chickens.
The previous night, a B-29 bound from Spokane to Okinawa,
following a stopover at Barber's Point in Hawaii, had one of its
engines stop shortly after takeoff, causing it to crash over Hickam
Field, killing 16 Air Force personnel aboard.
In Newton, N.J., nine were killed in the crash of an Air
Force C-47 transport plane following collision with a B-25. The B-25
landed safely.
The AFL maintained its policy of not endorsing presidential
candidates but announced formation of a committee to work for the
election of the Truman-Barkley ticket.
The cost of living had gone to a record high, according to
figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It took $21.68
in June to buy the same groceries which had cost $10 during the
period 1935-39, amounting to $705 per year for a family of three,
compared to $695 the previous January and the post-World War I peak
of $615 in June, 1920. The farmer took $339 of that most recent
annualized average food bill, with the remaining 49 percent going to
the food processor, transporter, wholesaler and retailer. In May,
the split had been 50-50 and in the period 1935-39, only 40 percent
had gone to the farmer. Meat comprised $213 of the average annual
family outlay, compared to $202 the previous May and only $89 in
August, 1939, just prior to the
invasion of Poland by the Nazis.
The cost of living index record high was set at 173.7 on July
15, 9.7 percent higher than a year earlier, 30.3 percent above June,
1946, 76.2 percent higher than in August, 1939. Principal food item increases were
in meats, poultry, fish, dairy products, and eggs. Fresh fruits and
vegetables dropped in price but less than the ordinary seasonal
decline.
G.M. workers, based on their contract, thus received a pay
increase based on the rise in cost of living.
The NLRB asked that the International Typographical Union be
held in contempt of court for committing the error of insisting on
closed shop contracts in violation of the proscription thereof under
Taft-Hartley and in violation of a previously issued temporary
restraining order in Federal District Court.
In Foggia, Italy, an earthquake struck, damaging 50 buildings
beyond repair and destroying 400 homes in nearby Montesantangelo and
San Giovanni Rotundo.
In Santa Ana, California, a woman's decomposing legs were
found this date in the Orange County dump. Doctors at the county
hospital said that the amputations were crudely performed.
In Hartford, Conn., the clerk of the health department
reported that two brothers wished to marry two sisters, to that end
sought marriage licenses. Both brothers were named Joseph and both
sisters were named Marie, each with different middle names. All four
were from Massachusetts. They planned a double wedding.
In Morganton, N.C., plans for various improvements at the new
state hospital located at Camp Butner were outlined by the State
Hospitals Board of Control. One such improvement was the creation of
a poultry farm and cultivating a thousand acres of farm land.
The Asheville Times reported that former gubernatorial
candidate and State Treasurer Charles Johnson had accepted a
position with the Bank of Charlotte as executive vice-president, to
become effective in January at the conclusion of his term.
On the editorial page, "Answer to the Parking Problem" tells of the City Planning Board, two years after beginning its
consideration of how to resolve the downtown parking shortage,
developing a plan whereby off-street parking developed by the
municipal authority, either leased to private companies or utilizing
meters, would be the solution. A new enabling statute was to be
introduced by the Legislature in 1949 to make clear the
developmental power.
As with most cities and towns across the nation, the
automobile had not been invented when the city was laid out. Streets
had to be widened by various means to accommodate the automobile,
but parking narrowed the amount of space usable by traffic, creating
increased congestion as more cars hit the roads.
In Baltimore, it was reported that since 1931, 60 million
dollars worth of property values had been lost in the downtown area,
reducing the tax revenue by 1.8 million dollars. A principal reason
was difficulty of access. In Boston, property values had gone down
465 million dollars in the previous decade prior to 1941.
The City Planning Board had found that 345 cities and towns
in the country had legal authority to provide parking facilities. It
had urged the creation of such facilities only if made necessary by
the absence of private enterprise.
Remember: Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.
Don't follow leaders...
Vote for Field & Stream, or Felt & Hiss, as
the case may be. Fight the fare increase.
"This Is Too Much, By Gum!" tells of chewing gum
manufacturers ready in 1949 to spew out millions of packs of the
rubbery substance to awaiting jaws to smack. It was not the product
of the spodilla tree or the vegetable matter gathered by Mexican
chicleros. Rather it would be put forth by the chemical, rubber, and
petroleum firms, the less expensive type to manufacture.
In 1948, enough gum was sold to stretch around the globe 34.5
times. The coming year might see enough to extend to the moon and
back along a three-foot path of chewing matter. If so, it ventures,
it might be worth considering taking the path with a one-way ticket
and only cigarettes for company.
A piece from the Winston-Salem Journal, titled
"Statesmanlike Attitude", tells of Senator-nominate
Melville Broughton having grown further in stature by his desire to
refrain from practicing law while in Congress. He would undoubtedly
take a cut in pay.
Robert Allen, substituting for vacationing Drew Pearson,
tells of Justice William O. Douglas nearly having been killed in a
truck accident recently in Oregon. A friend of the Justice was
trucking four horses through the Cascade Mountains when the truck
lost its grip on the road and began hurtling backwards, finally
rolling over and throwing the occupants out. No one, however, was
hurt. Justice Douglas quipped: "In legal parlance, that's what
would be called a violent descent."
The Army and Navy budgets for the next year sought five
billion dollars more than that allocated by Congress, 16 billion.
The Navy wanted eleven billion and the Army ten billion, neither
including Air Force requests, likely to be at least seven billion.
The Republicans, if they were to win the election, wanted a
voice in the budget for 1949.
Russians in Germany liked to speed, but had recently been
taught a lesson by an American sergeant and a trooper of the U.S.
Constabulary. They had flagged down a speeding Russian colonel, who
stopped but refused to identify himself. The sergeant courteously
ordered him out of his car. The Russian locked his doors and rolled
up his windows, refusing to alight from the vehicle. The trooper
wanted to call an officer, but the sergeant insisted that he would
handle the Russian, whereupon he ordered a tow truck and had the
colonel's car, with him still in it, towed to an MP station. The
Russian started his engine and tried to extricate himself from the
predicament. The result was that his rear tires were ground to
shreds by the time he arrived at the station.
Mr. Allen next relates of the Sheriff of Providence, R.I., Michael
Costello, who located places of residence for evicted families. He
had refused to evict one family until they could find another place,
angering the judge who had ordered the eviction. He paid for
newspaper ads to organize on behalf of the families.
Minnesota Republicans wanted Governor Earl Warren to come to
Minnesota to help Senator Joseph Ball in his struggle to withstand
being defeated by Minneapolis Mayor Hubert Humphrey, leading in the
race. They wanted the Governor to bring his family along, a major
point of emphasis.
Whether he was to bring hamburgers and frankfurters also for
the cookout, was not stated.
General Harry Vaughan, military aide to President Truman, had
named his cronies for positions in the Japan military occupation
force, despite Army objection. The General had also placed friends
in well-paying positions at the State Department.
Mexico was negotiating with the U.S. to reach terms on the
American oil expropriation by Mexico in March, 1938. The results
could again open Mexico's oil reserves to American consumers. The
financially-strapped Mexican Government was anxious to obtain new
revenue from the program. Expropriation Day, he notes, was still
celebrated, however, as a national holiday in Mexico. Thus, the
Mexican Government had to tread lightly.
Marquis Childs, in Portland, Ore., tells of Oregon having
taken over from Maine and Vermont as the most Republican state in
the nation. They were conservative but not reactionary Republicans,
as exampled by the fact of their having voted liberal Wayne Morse
into the Senate. It was no accident therefore that they voted for
Thomas Dewey in the Oregon primary the previous May, giving him the
inside track on the GOP nomination, defeating insurgent Harold
Stassen, effectively ending his momentum and the chance for the
nomination. Former Minnesota Governor Stassen had advocated
outlawing the Communist Party, a position which Mr. Dewey believed
would be unconstitutional under the First Amendment. The electorate
of Oregon obviously believed in preservation of civil liberties, as
championed by Senator Morse.
Portland had grown by leaps and bounds since 1941 as had the
entire state, which gained 40 percent in population in that period.
A third of the population of the state resided in Portland. Yet,
only one-sixth of the Legislature came from Portland, as there had
been a successful resistance mounted from the rural areas to
reapportionment.
A younger crop of leaders was emerging among the Portland
Democrats, but they were being challenged in the Congressional
elections by the Progressive Party, comprised in Oregon primarily of
Communists and fellow-travelers. But the latter were insignificant
when compared to the Republicans, as were the Democrats for that
matter.
Mr. Childs deems it likely that not only had Oregon been
decisive in naming the Republican nominee, it was quite likely that
they had also selected the next President.
Which was true, actually.
Max Hall tells of a lumber truck colliding with five cars and
then overturning onto a sixth near Baltimore, leaving three people
dead and twelve injured. It bespoke the seriousness of the problem
with highway infrastructure, in need of extension and repair. The
problem was related to inflation and the housing shortage. The
number of motor vehicles on the roads had risen sharply to 40
million, which had traveled nearly 18 million miles on rural roads
during the previous June. August was probably setting a new record
for travel along rural roads. Traffic had more than doubled in the
previous five years.
A lot of road-building was taking place, but not enough. The
states, with help from the Federal Government, were probably
spending more than ever before on roads.
To build a modern four-lane highway with a grassy median
strip cost $200,000 per mile, higher if the land was hilly and
dilly, requiring bridges and tunnels. It was not unusual for such a
highway to cost as much as $600,000 to $800,000 per mile.
Building such highways locally usually required condemnation
of low-cost housing, difficult in light of the nationwide housing
shortage. The government could not simply ask the residents to
vacate their homes to make way for a highway, as they had no place
to go. Meanwhile, the traffic continued to mount.
You have to build roads, Wilbur.
Davis Lee, in a piece from the Newark Telegram, a
black newspaper of which he was publisher, tells of a recent trip
through the South in which he had met with both blacks and whites in
urban and rural centers. He feels more qualified to venture an
opinion than the New York City black leader whose opinions were
based on distorted stories from the "Negro press" and
The Daily Worker.
When he walked into a restaurant in Virginia or South
Carolina operated by whites, he knew that he would not be served.
But in New Jersey, where a civil rights law was in effect, he had
also been refused service in restaurants.
In the South, blacks and whites remained separate unto
themselves. Such segregation had been the economic salvation of the
Southern black population. In Atlanta, blacks controlled their own
businesses, generating millions of dollars in profits. In Newark,
similar in size to Atlanta, not so much black-owned business existed
as in one Georgia, Virginia, or South Carolina town.
New Jersey had more civil rights legislation on the books
than any other state and yet practiced more discrimination than
Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina or Georgia, each of the
latter of whom employed many blacks, for instance, in their
Departments of Motor Vehicles whereas New Jersey employed but a
single black person in its DMV.
A young black business entrepreneur could do as he wished in
the South. A man in Spartanburg owned a funeral home, a taxicab
service, a service station, grocery store, several buses and
operated a large farm and night club. He ventures that in New Jersey
or New York, he could not have done so.
The Safe Bus Company of Winston-Salem, N.C., owned and
operated more than a hundred buses. But a black person in New Jersey
seeking a franchise would not only be refused but would be lucky not
to receive a bullet in the back.
Blacks and whites got along better, he finds, than "Northern
agitators" would have one believe. There were sore spots down
there, but they were present as well in New Jersey, and not so bad
as many suggested, the trouble in the South stemming, he suggests,
from ignorant whites, not the intelligent and better classes of the
two races.
He finds that the conflict was inevitable after the Civil War
when slaves were suddenly free in the South, wherein the whole of
the economy had been constructed around the peculiar institution.
"Certainly you couldn't expect the South to forget this in 75
or even 150 years."
He believes that the feeling did not derive from hatred of
the black. The South had gone further than any other region of the
country to find a "workable solution" to the race issue.
Naturally, Southerners resented having a civil rights program pushed
upon them from the North.
He says that he had opined in several editorials that whites
were friends to the blacks and wanted to see them prosper. He
believes that blacks were more prejudiced than whites whom many
blacks accused of prejudice.
The entire approach to race in the country was wrong. Joe
Louis convinced the world that he was the greatest fighter of his
time. He did not need propaganda. There was no need to convince the
world that blacks were equal to whites. He favors carrying on the
fight for justice, civil rights, and equality within the black race
and demonstrating by standard of living, conduct, ability and
intelligence that blacks were equal to anyone. At that point, the
South or anywhere else would accept blacks on their terms. The
present program of threats and agitation, he concludes, only made
enemies of friends.
A letter writer from Lagos, Nigeria, 14, seeks pen pals. His
name, or title, is Prince and he provides his address on Princes
Street, should you wish to write.
Lagos had produced several such letters through recent years.
The Atlanta Journal presents another Pome, in "Which
Is Contained a Word of Caution for Those Who Might Be Considering
Straying from the Straight and Narrow":
