Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the Big Three
ambassadors to Moscow conferred for the ninth time at the Kremlin
this date, this time with Deputy Foreign Commissar Andrei Vishinsky.
U.S. Ambassador Walter Bedell Smith stated that subsequent meetings
would be held. There was to be no statement yet, however, on the
results of the meetings. A reliable source stated that there was a
good prospect for an agreement on procedure during this week, with a
communique resultant.
In Berlin, the Soviet commander announced that henceforth all
residents of the city would pay taxes only in the sector in which
they lived and that the Russian sector taxes would benefit only that
sector. The order appeared to split the finance department of the
city, following previous splits at the behest of the Russians in the
police, food, and labor departments.
The U.N. Security Council began an emergency session
regarding the temporary truce in Palestine, pursuant to a request by
Israel desirous of action on truce violations by the Arabs.
Before HUAC, meeting in New York, Alexander Stevens, 54, testified, taking the
Fifth Amendment on whether he had ever used the name, as claimed by
Whittaker Chambers, "J. Peters", whether he ever knew
Mr. Chambers, Alger Hiss or others named in the hearings, and
whether he had ever been a Communist or the leader of the national
underground, as also contended by Mr. Chambers. Congressman Richard
Nixon, expressing frustration at witnesses continually pleading the
Fifth Amendment when the questions posed could not possibly expose
them to criminal liability for the statute of limitations, asked the
Subcommittee to meet in executive session to determine whether to
recommend to the full Committee that a contempt citation be issued
against Mr. Stevens. Mr. Stevens, born in Hungary, later a part of
Czechoslovakia, and arriving in the country in 1924, had told Mr.
Nixon during his testimony that he was not interested in obtaining
confidential secrets from the American Government for the Soviets.
He had not become a U.S. citizen.
At one point, Mr. Nixon, when Mr. Stevens, having pleaded the
Fifth Amendment regarding whether he had ever owned a 1929 Ford
Model A or had any dealings with one, while admitting that he
presently owned a Chrysler, asked the witness why, when the Chrysler
was more expensive than the Ford, it would be any the less
incriminating to acknowledge the Chrysler and not the Ford.
Candidly, flip or not, we have trouble following the pattern
of thought, even if Ford did have a better idea while Chrysler
needed the bailout. Everybody knows, and certainly knew in 1948, for
instance, that notorious bank robbers of the period of the late
Twenties through mid-Thirties favored the Ford as a swift get-away
vehicle. Nobody ever heard of a bank robber using a Chrysler. So, of
course, you would plead the Fifth on such a question.
Mr. Chambers again took the stand and asserted that there was
no doubt in his mind that Alexander Stevens was the man he first
knew in 1928-29, while working at the Daily Worker, as "J.
Peters", and subsequently knew him in 1932 or 1933 as leader
of the Communist underground of the whole country. He said that it
was Mr. Peters who had first introduced him to Alger Hiss.
Former Assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle, to whom Mr. Chambers had gone to report the underground Communist movement in 1939 and who referred the matter to the FBI, also testified, in executive session. Significantly, given the subsequent testimony of Mr. Chambers, in the Hiss civil defamation suit and before the grand jury, regarding alleged espionage by Alger Hiss, Mr. Berle testified that Mr. Chambers told him at the time that the purpose of the underground was to recruit members of the Government to form a study group to develop sympathy for the American Communist cause but had nothing to do with espionage.
If Mr. Chambers was telling the truth in November, 1948 and beyond about the supposed delivery of sensitive transcribed documents from Mr. Hiss to Mr. Chambers, why would he have actively concealed this fact on this occasion to Mr. Berle when Mr. Hiss, by 1939, was working in the State Department regarding Far Eastern policy? If it was concern over potential prosecution, as the five-year statute of limitations (ten years in the case of deliberately communicating classified information to unauthorized persons) had not yet run in August, 1939, then why did Mr. Chambers not mention espionage during the HUAC and Senate hearings in August, 1948, rather waiting until November during the defamation suit to indicate his "bombshell"?
The Committee stood in recess until after Labor Day.
In the Texas Democratic run-off primary, held Saturday, for the open Senate seat of
retiring Senator Pass the Biscuits Pappy Lee O'Daniel, former
Governor Coke Stevenson had jumped back into the lead by 210 votes
over Congressman Lyndon Johnson, out of nearly a million votes thus far
tabulated. Forty-three of the state's 254 counties remained to be
fully counted, with about 6,000 votes outstanding. It was the
closest political race in state history. Both candidates had stated
that they would not accept the unofficial count of the election
bureau.
The CIO was set to back President Truman in the election,
but, along with AFL, would spend more time likely supporting
Congressmen who had been supportive of labor.
The Americans for Democratic Action endorsed the President
the previous day.
Registration for the first peacetime draft, starting with
25-year olds, began this date in Charlotte, as told by Emery Wister
of The News. For most, it was a walk and a wait in the hot
sun. Local board members said that they had inadequate staff to
register the men. Processing time was 15 minutes per man. By noon,
several hundred men had been registered.
The Army said that it needed 10,000 inductees during
November. None were yet requested by either the Navy or Air Force.
Cool air from Canada began to end the heatwave besetting
most of the nation, save the West Coast. But the cooler breezes
would only afford transitory relief from the 90 to 100-degree
temperatures of the previous few days. The death toll from the
heatwave had risen to 173 in 16 states. Temperatures in the 90's
persisted through most of the country on Sunday.
The hurricane which had been churning in the Atlantic for
several days was expected to impact Eastern North Carolina this
afternoon and night, as hurricane warnings were in effect from
Hatteras to Wilmington. The center of the storm remained 250 miles
south of Hatteras, moving north by northwest or north at 10 to 12
miles per hour. It will get there probably before the pumpkin.
Hatches were battened.
Six shelters, four for whites and two for Negroes, had been
established at Wilmington. There would be nothing worse than the
prospect of having to integrate for a few days simply because of
having your home blown down.
Ralph Gibson of The News tells of Henry Wallace coming
to Charlotte the following day, to speak before two unsegregated
groups, one for fifteen minutes on the Courthouse steps, approved by
the City Council despite threats from crank callers and "Cecil",
who sent cautionary postcards, warning the Council of dire results
in the next election if they allowed Mr. Wallace to speak to an
unsegregated audience. The Council could not approve the request for
use of a courtroom, however, as both were in use the following day.
Collections at the speech would not be allowed. What about eggs and
tomatoes?
After making a talk before a small crowd in front of the post
office on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, Mr. Wallace had been
pelted with eggs in Durham during a speech. The same greeting had
come to him in Burlington as he spoke to a crowd on Main Street,
numbering 2,500. He suffered the same treatment later in Greensboro,
including tomatoes, could have made a nice omelet in the heat on the
street. He was not allowed by the angry crowds to speak at either
venue. Governor Gregg Cherry decried the conduct.
Mary Price, Progressive Party gubernatorial candidate,
accused a month earlier by Elizabeth Bentley before HUAC and the
Senate Investigating Committee of being involved in the Communist
underground, accompanied Mr. Wallace on the tour of the state.
He also planned to stop in High Point and Winston-Salem, the
latter appearance to occur at the Southside Baseball Park.
The Charlotte City Council said that they did not anticipate
trouble of the eggs and tomato variety in Charlotte because Negroes
and whites would be walking around together at the speeches.
A new serialized novel by Vida Hurst was beginning. Turn to
page 9-A for the first thrilling chapter of Infatuation.
On the editorial page, "Censorship of the Radio" comments on the Scott decision by the FCC two years earlier,
providing that when an idea of controversy is broadcast, persons
should not be denied the right to answer attacks upon them or their
belief solely because they were few in number. Scott was an atheist
from California who demanded time to respond to religious
programming. The stations involved interpreted the vague FCC ruling
to require the response and gave him that opportunity for 30
minutes. Broadcasters and religious groups then protested. So a
committee of Congress was set to investigate the ruling.
The piece finds the committee ill-equipped to look at this
sensitive issue, that if the pattern of HUAC were followed, it would
turn into a media circus. But the issue needed clarification. There
was no problem with the individual or the newspapers. People and
publishers could believe and assert what they wanted, without
needing necessarily to afford an opposing viewpoint. But radio
stations, licensed to broadcast over limited public airwaves, did
not enjoy the same liberty. It was unlikely, it concludes, that the
broadcaster would have the same power over what audiences heard
which newspapers had over what the public read.
"Forward on the Road to Health" tells of North
Carolina having made great strides in providing better health care
for the people, though still inadequate. In 1947, the General
Assembly passed a bill which gave matching funds totaling 51.6
million dollars in State and Federal funding to build and equip
hospitals over a five-year period. Part of the money was spent on
the new mental health facility at Camp Butner, eventually set to
care for 1,100 patients.
But the state still remained low among the states nationally
in provision of quality health care, though fourth in the South in
per capita income. It cautions that with educational advancements
and growing industries, the state must not forget medical care,
especially mental health care.
"Judge Zeke Henderson" quotes Shaftesbury re
humor being the only test of gravity and gravity of humor. A subject
which would not bear raillery was suspicious and a jest which could not
stand serious scrutiny was false wit.
Mr. Henderson, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, had followed the maxim. He
had been a logger before becoming a lawyer and split 500 rails per
day, a record in the Eastern part of the state. Now, he was being
nominated as an interim appointment to fill the Federal District
Court bench in the Western District, pending the outcome of the
election. The Senate had not confirmed the appointment by the
President of Superior Court Judge Wilson Warlick, eventually
renominated and confirmed after the beginning of the year by the new
Democratic Senate. The piece praises the recess appointment of Judge
Henderson.
A piece from the New York Times, titled "Elms in
the Meadows", poetically celebrates the elms of the river
valleys: "Reddish flower clusters line the twigs in Spring;
the flat, whitish winged fruits drift away in June breezes. In
Autumn the pointed double-toothed leaves with cream-colored veins
change to a beautiful clear gold. When snow blankets the land and
the river's song is muted beneath ice, the symmetrical bare branches
are an appealing etching above the whiteness."
It finds that the American elm added charm to quiet village
streets, but was perhaps most beautiful when growing above the
"flower-starred green of the meadows."
Robert Allen, substituting for vacationing Drew Pearson,
tells of Governor Dewey having been conferring at high levels, with
Speaker Joe Martin, Senator Styles Bridges, Senator William
Knowland, and House Majority Leader Charles Halleck, presenting his
outline for the campaign, to get underway in mid-September and
continue through Monday, November 1, the day before the election. He
would make a Labor Day speech the following Monday, but did not deem
it necessary to conduct an extensive tour of the country as the
President planned. He would counter the Truman charge of a
"do-nothing" Congress with the claim that the President
was unable to get along with Congress. He would stress his own
cooperation with the New York Legislature to effect legislation. He
would avoid any promises to balance the budget or cut taxes, as the
changeable foreign situation might interfere with such promises. He
would coordinate with Governor Warren to avoid conflicts and
contradictions, such as had taken place between Wendell Willkie and
Senator Charles McNary in 1940 when they ran as the Republican
ticket. Mr. Dewey said that the President was on the defensive and
he intended to keep him there. He would build to a climax just
before the election, avoid an early anti-climax.
That decision may have dovetailed with his concluding lines
of his acceptance speech at the convention.
A Western cattle-raiser had written to a Washington friend
that he would have to start liking beans.
Former OPA head Paul Porter had resumed his private law
practice following his time as special assistant to the President
regarding inflation during the emergency session of Congress. A
member of his firm, former trust-buster for the Justice Department,
Thurmond Arnold, told Mr Porter that he escaped just in time to
avoid being investigated as a White House spy.
Commerce Secretary Charles Sawyer was going before Congress
soon regarding the allocation of a large sum to the Middle East to
complete the Aramco pipeline from the Persian Gulf to the Lebanon
coast, 1,100 miles in length, only 300 of which had thus far been
completed. The oil companies, Standard of New Jersey, Socony-Vacuum,
Texaco, and Standard of California, all with concessions in the
Middle East, were clamoring for it. But U.S. oilmen did not want the
steel piping shipped overseas as it was necessary at home. The Army
and Navy had also expressed doubt that the pipeline could be
defended in case of war and advised development instead of Western
Hemispheric resources. The oil companies said that the pipeline
would pay for itself in a few years and so loss of it would not be
an issue. The Israeli Government attacked the pipeline as favoring
the Arab countries, that the shortest route was into the Israeli
port of Haifa, where Israelis controlled a British-owned refinery
which the British had refused to supply with crude. Rumania had
offered to do so in exchange for refined products and the Israelis
were threatening to agree to such an arrangement unless the British
agreed to put oil in the refinery.
Maj. General William "Wild Bill" Donovan had
returned from Greece with a large amount of testimony collected
regarding the murder of CBS correspondent George Polk, still
unsolved.
Marquis Childs, in San Francisco, tells of California
conducting an agricultural inspection at its borders to assure that
no contaminated fruits and vegetables entered the state. About a
third of the nation's produce came from California, producing about
two billion dollars per year in income, the highest of any state.
California had a 41 percent increase in population since
1940, making it close to second among the states.
Governor Earl Warren, first elected in 1942 and then
re-elected in 1946, had just been nominated as the GOP
vice-presidential candidate and enjoyed widespread popularity both
among California Republicans and Democrats, having won the
gubernatorial nomination on both party ballots in 1946. It was
thought that he might overshadow Governor Dewey on the ticket, but
Californians believed that his natural modesty would act as
restraint.
Governor Warren was planning a tour of the border states,
with emphasis on Missouri and Kentucky, the home states respectively
of the Democratic nominees, President Truman and Senator Alben
Barkley. He might also venture into the deep South—wherein, a
few years hence, after he became Chief Justice in 1953 and following
Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, holding, for lack of practical realization, unconstitutional the
separate-but-equal doctrine, billboards would appear saying,
"Impeach Earl Warren". He might also make a number of
talks in the big cities of the East. Senator William Knowland of
California would be with him on his tours. The Knowland family of
Oakland, publishers of the Tribune, had a lot to do with Mr.
Warren's rise in state politics from District Attorney of Alameda
County, and Governor Warren had appointed Mr. Knowland, a veteran of
the war, to the Senate seat of deceased Hiram Johnson in 1945.
Governor Warren, however, had critics in California who
claimed that he had failed as Governor to bring about the
progressive measures desired by a majority of voters, such as a fair
employment practices law, which he had urged but the Legislature had
not passed, as well as housing legislation. Mr. Childs thinks the
criticism unfair as the California Legislature was more subject than
most to lobbyist pressures because of the cross-filing law which
allowed candidates to run on both ballots, diluting party
identification.
The contrast with New York was striking, where Governor Dewey
had boasted of working with the Legislature to achieve an FEPC and a
housing measure.
Governor Warren had liberal views which he sometimes
expressed only fuzzily but at other times boldly. Rich tories
thought him a dangerous radical. He would ultimately be judged on
what influence he would have on national policy and the
administration, when and if he got to Washington as Vice-President.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop tell of the meeting the previous weekend of the Joint
Chiefs at Newport, R.I., being another step
down the road toward realization of unity of the services, conjoined
under the Department of Defense a year earlier. It was an even
greater leap toward formation of intelligible strategic planning.
For the previous two years, the competition between the services had
prevented a cohesive long-range policy for war-planning. A meeting
in the spring at Key West had produced some agreement as to a basic
concept, but implementation still remained the subject of dispute.
That disagreement had been manifested in the last session of
the Congress regarding the expansion of the Air Force from 55 to 70
groups, a dispute over the necessity of the Navy's super carrier of
60,000 tons, as well as other less glaring controversies. The method
of delivery of the bomb to targets, whether by the Air Force or Navy
carriers, was a central issue.
A tactical deficit was recognized with respect to the German
XXI Schnorkel-equipped submarine, of which the Russians had 250 and
the U.S. had no equivalent in terms of range and radar absorption capability.
At Newport, Secretary of Defense James Forrestal offered the
draft of an agreement and it was accepted with little change. The
text added to the Key West agreement that each service, in their
primary missions, had to have exclusive responsibility for
"programming and planning" and the necessary authority
to carry it out, subject to control by higher authority. Each
service had to complement and cooperate with the others. The Alsops find
the Newport agreement to have been the most significant step since
unification of the services in 1947.
A letter writer thanks the newspaper for the front page
coverage and editorial regarding the World Council of Churches
conference in Amsterdam. Recently, the writer's minister had
preached a sermon on the merits of Matthew having been seen by
Jesus, not as a taxman, but having the potential to do good for the
community. She hopes that moral principles and caring for one
another would supplant the attitude of individualism abounding in
the world.
A letter writer echoes the same sentiment, praises the
editorial of August 26 on the Council and the address to it by John
Foster Dulles.
A letter from the Pastor of Bethel Presbyterian Church in
Clover, S.C., reminds that new registration was required in South
Carolina for all voters planning to vote November 2 in the general
election. One of the important issues in the election, he says, was whether
to grant the power of divorce by an amendment to the South Carolina
Constitution, the state being the only one in the union at the time
not allowing divorce.
A letter from the Minister of St. John's Baptist Church in
Charlotte thanks the newspaper for its editorial comment on the
passing of D. W. Fink, a member of his church.
A Quote of the Day: "Up at Ann Arbor, Mich., a news
dispatch of July 26 relates, 'Two horses galloping at top speed
collided head-on and were killed last night,' from which we can only
conclude that horses—commonly credited with horse
sense—sometimes have no more sense than people." —Nashville
Banner
They should have had a Chrysler.
Another Quote of the Day: "I want to vote for MEN, not
for party labels. I would like to vote for Dewey and Warren—both
fine men. Thurmond and Wright have no more show of winning than a
tallow-legged dog chasing an asbestos cat through Hell."
—Grenada County (Miss.) Weekly
A Third Quote of the Day: "The fellow who sliced a
peach and then an onion into his Corn Flakes in Atlanta gives us a
new idea of indifference." —Greenville (S.C.) Piedmont