Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that U.S. military
occupation governor in Germany Lucius Clay said that he did not
believe war to be just around the corner and expressed doubt that
the Russians would make Berlin the final issue on the entire German
problem. He said that if the Moscow talks failed to resolve the
crisis, the U.S. would bring the matter before the U.N. Security
Council. He said that the Germans were very fearful of Soviet
domination and of American withdrawal. General Clay predicted that
if the crisis continued into the winter months, there would be
inadequate coal supplied by the airlift for house heating but that
conditions would still be better than the winters of two or three
years earlier. He reiterated that there was no intention to
evacuate, saying, "I don't know what the hell we came here for
in the first place if we are going to get out now."
The three Western ambassadors to Moscow conferred with Soviet
Foreign Commissar V. M. Molotov for about 90 minutes this date in
furtherance of the effort to resolve the Berlin crisis. It was the
shortest of the meetings held since late July when the talks began
on the 81-day old blockade. Ambassador Walter Bedell Smith of the
U.S., per his usual stance, had no comment on the talks.
During the early morning, two American airlift pilots of a
C-47 transport had bailed out over the Soviet zone of Germany after
a motor failed, had not been heard from since. Air Force officials
said that they believed that the Russians would do everything they
could to assist finding the pilots. Nine Americans had died in air
accidents since the beginning of the airlift in June.
Prior to appearing before HUAC, meeting in executive session,
Dr. Martin Kamen, nuclear physicist who discovered the radioactive
carbon tracer presently being used in biological and medical
research, told a press conference that he had not given any nuclear
secrets to unauthorized persons and would not give secret
information to Committee members unless the Atomic Energy Commission
assured him that the members were cleared for access to the data.
Dr. Kamen had been dismissed by the Army from the Manhattan Project
in 1944. He said that the Committee had already released derogatory
insinuations about him and that he would not testify in closed
session but would publicly answer all questions the Committee had.
He said to the press that he was not and never had been a Communist.
He was never told why he was asked to resign from the bomb project,
that he understood he was suspected of some indiscretion in his
scientific research. He had been at Lawrence Laboratories in
Berkeley for nine years before joining Washington University in St.
Louis where he headed the medical school X-ray clinic and was
professor of chemistry.
The President said the previous night in an address to the
American Association for the Advancement of Science that some
politicians in Congress were endangering national security by
engaging in smear tactics against scientists. He did not mention
HUAC but that was the assumed target. He called the procedure
"totalitarian" and "un-American—the most
un-American we have to contend with today", that scientists
were expected to alter their theories to match "the police
state's propaganda line". He again labeled the hearings a "red
herring", orchestrated by those who had a political axe to
grind. He assured the scientists that this speech was non-political.
A short time after the address, Dr. Philip Morse announced
that he had resigned from the Brookhaven National Laboratory on July
17 to return to MIT. He believed it was necessary to investigate
workers on the atomic projects to assure security but found the HUAC
manner of investigation inappropriate. Recently, he and
seven other nuclear scientists had wired the President that the HUAC
investigations threatened national security.
The U.N. announced that the Security Council would meet on
Thursday in Paris regarding the Indian invasion of Hyderabad, called
at the request of the latter state.
Indian troops continued the invasion of Hyderabad, capturing
this date Rajasur and Jalna after penetration of 70 miles into the
state. Another force captured Suriapet, and another Daulatabad. Each
of the captured towns was in a different direction radiating from
Hyderabad City, the capital. One Indian column, in the Naidrug area,
had the heaviest casualties, with 100 dead and 15 captured while the
Moslem Nizam forces had 50 killed.
In a four-power meeting in Paris anent the disposition of the
former Italian colonies in Africa, the U.S. and Britain accepted a
French proposal to establish an Italian trusteeship over the
Somaliland. Russia, which wanted all the former colonies so set up,
opposed the French plan because it set no time limit on the mandate.
In New York, excavation for the new U.N. building began this
date at the 8.5 million dollar site in Manhattan donated by John D.
Rockefeller, Jr., in 1946.
Republican Representative Margaret Chase Smith of Maine won
the Senate seat being vacated by Senator Wallace White, breaking a
victory margin record for the GOP set in the 1928 gubernatorial race
in the state. She predicted that it was the forerunner of a great
national Republican victory. Governor Dewey's campaign manager,
Herbert Brownell, echoed the remark and said the victory hearkened a
Republican White House in 1949.
The Dixiecrats were trying to get Democratic Congressional
nominees to oppose the Truman-Barkley ticket.
In San Francisco, the Army began signing on stevedores to
load strike-bound cargo despite an official boycott by the
International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union led by Harry
Bridges. Mr. Bridges accused the Army of strike-breaking. The Union
had offered to load the Army ships at pre-strike rates and working
conditions but the shipowners had turned down the offer on the basis
that they could not do business with "Communism".
Some 200,000 tons of Army supplies had piled up on the docks,
and 300,000 bushels of wheat were on the ground in Washington. Air
shipment of supplies to Alaska and the Pacific had started. C &
H sugar of Crockett, California, said it would close its doors
October 1 for lack of raw sugar.
In Richmond, California, hundreds of CIO strikers at the
Standard Oil Refinery fought a battle with police to prevent
non-striking maintenance workers from entering the plant. A Highway
Patrolman and four strikers were hospitalized. Cameras of three news
photographers were seized and the film deliberately exposed. Several
photographers were roughed up and an Oakland Tribune reporter
was hit by a teargas bomb. Rocks were thrown, some weighing five
pounds, after police tossed tear gas bombs toward the strikers. Some
of the teargas bombs were thrown back at police. The strike was in
its eleventh day.
In Upland, California, a trucking contractor was accused of
bigamy, having two families, one in Upland and another in nearby
Covina. Each family had three children. He had married one wife in
Reno in 1937 and the other in 1941. One family had complained for
lack of support, prompting the investigation which revealed the
other family. The man also faced support charges and possible Mann
Act violations for transporting a female across state lines for lewd
or immoral purposes.
He was one of those butt-truckers, always trying to push his load.
In Newton, N.C., a building had been erected for the Boy
Scouts and for additional recreation for young people by the Grace
Evangelical & Reformed Church. It cost $3,600.
J. A. Daly of The News tells of plans being laid forth
at a meeting of business and industrial leaders of Charlotte
regarding the proposed 75 million dollar natural gas pipeline to run
from Texas and Louisiana through the Piedmont section of the
Carolinas, for 990 miles to the Northeast, to supply 200 million
cubic feet of gas per day.
In Charlotte, a clinic was to take place at the Moravian
Little Church on the Lane this night to educate the public regarding
alcoholism. Be sure and attend and try not to stagger too much
getting there.
On the editorial page, "Tough Days for Bootleggers" finds there to be still patrons of the bootleggers in Mecklenburg
despite legal sale and the fact that the bootleggers charged up to
twice the sale price of the liquor. Some preferred the anonymity of
the bootlegger so that they would not be seen entering the ABC
store. The pint peddlers purchased their stock at the ABC stores and
then resold it. The previous Sunday, ABC enforcement agents arrested
29 such persons in raids following undercover buy operations from
the bootleggers. Each of the persons had another line of work and
ran liquor only on the side. Only two of those arrested had
previously suspended sentences on convictions, an improvement over
the past when recidivism was high in bootlegging.
It ventures that such busts would eventually snuff out the
business.
What's the deal here? They're just providing a service for
the depressed shut-ins.
"Charlie Lambeth, Good Citizen" tells of Mr.
Lambeth who had died after throat surgery in New York at the age of
54. A City Councilman and former Mayor in 1931-33, he had also
served in both world wars in the Navy and was active in civic
affairs. He was informal and friendly and had recognized good
judgment.
"How Autumn Came to Carolina" tells of the
stifling heat of early September along the Eastern Seaboard having
let go the previous weekend as autumn came rolling over the
Carolinas on black clouds from the west. Hogsheads of tobacco
appeared along the highways of Eastern North Carolina. Cotton fields
and cornfields also yielded ripened crops. The bobwhite sung over
the land.
Them bobwhites, though, they liked to come over here and
pecked us.
A piece from the Raleigh News & Observer, titled
"For the Ladies", comments on women of England having
inaugurated a campaign to take up pipe smoking to substitute for the
shortage of cigarettes. They wrote letters to the editor of the
London Daily Herald to that end. One claimed to have smoked a
pipe for twelve years. Other women were reported taking up pipes.
The piece points out that in America, men and women smoked
pipes long before cigarettes were being rolled. Within the scope of
recollection, most were grannies, black or white. But they had not
always been old and had simply outlived the vogue. In pioneer
America, women used tobacco with the men, either smoking it in a
pipe or chewing it.
It finds that women smoking cigarettes might disturb some,
but it remained an advance from "the pipe, the plug, and the
snuffbrush."
Drew Pearson finds the top brass at the Pentagon to be the
most civilian-minded he had ever seen around the War Department in
many years. General Eisenhower and his successor as Army chief of
staff, General Omar Bradley, were responsible for the changes. When
the Joint Chiefs gathered, including the Air Force daredevils and
drop-the-bomb-now men of the Navy, there was always someone
conscientious who recalled the 300,000 G.I.'s buried during the war.
General Bradley was quiet, gracious, generous, good-natured and very
plain, renowned as a simple soldier. Once, during the Normandy
landing, when a three-star general, he took off his jacket and gave
it to a shivering G.I., telling him that it would be easier for him
than the G.I. to get another jacket.
General Bradley, poor growing up, graduated from West Point
in 1915 in the same class as Dwight Eisenhower. The latter ranked
100th and the former, 44th. Mr. Pearson notes that General MacArthur
graduated first in his class of 1903.
He had gotten the blame for the Battle of the Bulge but the
fact was that he was ordered to leave the Ardennes exposed because
of a command decision by General Montgomery's stooge, General
Strong, and General Eddie Siebert, an American, both of whom claimed
that the Germans could not possibly attack through the Ardennes. He
had related his concerns to General Patton before the German attack.
General Bradley, as a true soldier, however, accepted the blame
nevertheless.
His toughest task had been as head of the Veterans
Administration following the war, reorganizing it to make it run
more efficiently. He had done so well at the job that he received
scant attention, until he took on the commander of the American
Legion and publicly whipped him.
General Bradley believed that one of the ways to avoid war
was to take the profits out of it. At staff conferences, he outlined
strategy for potential warfare over Berlin while maintaining the
hope that nothing would happen and that everyone could go fishing.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop relate the fable of King Log,
deposed for inactivity by the inhabitants of the pond, enthroning in
his stead King Stork, who proceeded to mount the body of King Log
and gobble up the frogs who had made him King. They find it
meaningful to the Congress complaining of the tyranny of the
President, especially those GOP members who were isolationists and
reactionaries, the loudest of the complainers.
One such member was Senator Chapman Revercomb of West
Virginia, whose discriminatory provision of the displaced persons
bill had earned enmity in his state, aided by funding from the
outside for his opponent, former Senator Matthew Neely, such that
his seat was in grave danger. Governor Dewey had requested that he
eliminate the amendment, but he refused. An attempt by state party
leaders to enlist Governor Dewey's support for Senator Revercomb and
journey to the state was met with a cold shoulder.
Governor Dewey had helped to pry loose ERP aid from the House
Appropriations Committee chaired by John Taber of New York, who
feared retaliation from the Dewey machine in New York if he had not
complied with the request.
They point out that it was relatively new to see a
presidential candidate exerting such power and arm-twisting prior to
being elected. If the polls were not rigged, then the primary
unsettled question was not in the presidential race but how well
President Dewey could get along with the incoming Congress and the
Old Guard of his own party. His first act would be one of strong
leadership, probably in the field of foreign affairs, according to
those close to Mr. Dewey. Most of the right wing of the party would
go along with such a bold move, but it would be questionable whether
Senator Taft would do so as he was one of the few GOP right wingers
with "strong principles rather than strong prejudices."
DeWitt MacKenzie tells of ERP administrator Paul Hoffman
indicating that the Marshall Plan aid would be cut off from any
country which became Fascist or Communist. Mr. MacKenzie views it as
an encouraging reaffirmation of a policy which had to be followed
for there to be hope to win the struggle with Communism. It was a
policy which the Western allies would follow as well.
The reason for the stance was purely defensive, to prevent
the Soviet bloc from amassing aid which could help in building its
military apparatus. That did not, however, stop trade in goods which
could not be used directly to make war. The West needed certain
Eastern bloc goods and vice versa. While certain items were within a
gray zone as to whether they could be used to wage war, these were
of no concern in the long haul. Rather, the concern was to use all
of the country's resources to fight Communists both on the front
lines in Europe and at home.
Samuel Grafton, no longer carried by The News, tells of the "Grafton Poll" which he conducted at every presidential election. In the poll, one was not allowed to ask questions. Instead, one waited beside the subject on the train or at a cocktail party and waited for the person to select a topic for discussion. The only permissible question was some innocuous conversation starter such as whether the subject thought it might rain.
The poll measured not only opinions but the tenacity with which they were held. He had been running the poll for three weeks, had accumulated 213 subjects, none of whom, however, had mentioned the presidential race.
One group of analysts of the results believed that it meant that the people were doing nothing but thinking of the election and sought to hide their enthusiasm behind a charade of indifference, with ebullience brimming beneath the surface more than for any election in history based on production of the least discussion. Another group, primarily young people, believed that such a counter-intuitive result was nonsense, that in fact the lack of apparent interest was just that.
The conflict had caused strife, one non-interviewer of the first group claiming that a farmer subject was experiencing palpitations at the sight of a Dewey poster, while a non-interviewer of the second group claimed that the farmer was merely stung by a bee at the time.
He concludes: "It is a little difficult, of course, to wait here at headquarters for the first report to come in concerning a subject who displays open (as contrasted with concealed) enthusiasm for a candidate. Makes one edgy to sit around waiting. Won't somebody say something, please?"
Another "Better English" quiz appears on the page, again
providing the answers immediately below the questions, so that you
can adjust your scrolling to avoid inadvertently seeing them.
We shall try our hand: the first problematic sentence is
clearly the result of a boy asking the question. The second answer
is that it rhymes with "Laredo". The third is a trick
question as all three are misspelled. The fourth means to aid and
abet a forcible theft. The last is so obvious that we do not think
we are being a spoiler by relating that it is "allegation",
as in a referral for prosecution of charges of corroborating the
boy's too small dress as he rode side saddle.
A letter to the editor from Winder, Georgia—home of
Senator Richard Russell—, tells of the Atlanta Constitution
reproducing the News editorial "The Peckerwoods Take
Over", anent the coming to power of Herman Talmadge in Georgia
and of Earl and Russell Long in Louisiana, and finds the piece "'in
the groove'". She informs that the civil rights bill was made
to order for Mr. Talmadge to stir up his supporters in opposition.
The coalition between Governor M. E. Thompson and former Governors
Ellis Arnall and E. D. Rivers, the latter the "termite"
in Georgia politics, the former too advanced for most Georgians, did
more, she opines, to hinder Mr. Thompson than to help. "History
has moved in on us and we are not receptive to it."
She predicts that with the support of Senator Russell, the
President, not the Dixiecrats, would likely win Georgia. She
predicts that the state would emerge from the political debacle of
the gubernatorial election with a clearer vision of its
responsibilities in a democracy.
She predicted correctly regarding the 1948 election.
A letter writer thinks that there are many good people of the
North and the South, regardless of color, agrees with a former
letter writer on the subject.
But as to the egg throwing at Henry Wallace when he visited
Charlotte the previous week, he praises the throwers and the hen
which laid the eggs. Mr. Wallace, he says, knew what the Southern
reaction to his rhetoric would be.
He advocates people North and South, "white and
colors", getting together to look around. "For there is
the yellow race, you know."
A letter writer thanks the former letter writer for
commenting on Northerners and finds her comments salient, that when
the author had lived in the North, she also found Northerners never
to be disparaging of Southerners. The homes and churches of the
black people in the North compared favorably to those of the South.
She wonders if the editors were cognizant of the fact that many of
their readers were originally from the North and now occupied fine
homes in Charlotte.
A Quote of the Day: "Southern States Righters resent
the term Dixiecrats. Well, they've got to have something short if
they stay in big headlines. Will they settle for 'We-Uns?'"
—Greensboro Daily News
The Dallas Morning News finds that
neither FDR nor then vice-presidential candidate Henry Wallace had
anything negative to say about the people in the 1940 campaign who
threw things at Wendell Willkie. It thus appears inferentially to
justify the egg and tomato throwing at Mr. Wallace in the South.
Neither had anything to say about the shooting of President
Lincoln either...
The Charleston News and Courier wants every
seventh grader in South Carolina's schools to know that Woodrow
Wilson was the last Democratic President.
Yeah, and Abraham Lincoln was the last Republican President.
