Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that German press under
British license in Berlin had said that the Russians were making
arrangements for lifting the blockade which had begun June 24. An
American transport official stated, however, that there had been no
indication by the Russians as to when they intended to reopen rail
traffic to Berlin from Helmstedt and the East-West canal system. He
also said that the Russians would not receive any coal from the Ruhr
for their industries in the Eastern zone until the blockade was
lifted.
The Big Four military commanders were preparing to meet again
in the fourth day since meetings began to try to resolve the
blockade. Informants said that a snafu had developed on whether
marks should be exchanged one to one with Western currency, as the
Russians wanted, or the Western contention adopted, that one Western
mark was worth at least four Eastern marks.
In Prague, former Czech President Eduard Benes died at age 64
following a prolonged illness resulting from a stroke a year
earlier. He had resigned as President the previous June. A coup had
taken place the previous February in which the Communists took over
the Government. Soon afterward, Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk had
committed suicide. Mr. Benes had helped to found the Czech Republic
in 1918 with Thomas Masaryk, father of Jan. Mr. Benes had resigned
as President also when Adolf Hitler forced the Munich crisis
regarding the Sudetenland in 1938. He returned to Czechoslovakia in
1945 after voluntary exile in the U.S., Britain and Russia during
the war. He signed a mutual twenty-year assistance pact with the
Russians in 1943.
In Paris, Premier-designate Robert Schuman, having on Tuesday
received majority support from the National Assembly, quit trying to
form a new Government as he had been unsuccessful in attracting
members of a new Cabinet because the prospects disagreed with his
economic policies. Followers of General Charles DeGaulle hoped that
the crisis was force new elections. M. Schuman had been Premier
until being succeeded by Andre Marie earlier in the year before M.
Marie's resignation the previous Saturday.
A B-29, one of 90 taking part in a mock air battle testing
Britain's defenses, was abandoned by its crew after it developed
engine trouble over the Netherlands.
In Washington, Capitol police arrested a nude 30-year old
woman, described as an attractive brunette, on the fourth floor
ledge of the Senate law library. She resisted briefly before police
could cover her. Before they took her into custody, she tossed a
dollar bill, some small change, and the contents of her purse to the
ground. When she had been told by a Capitol bookbinder who saw her
on the ledge that it was against Capitol rules to be on the roof of
the Capitol, she said that she was just taking a sunbath. At the
time, she was taking off her clothes.
She got life.
Pollster Elmo Roper said that voters were interested in
foreign affairs as the candidates, except Henry Wallace, were
prepared to focus only on domestic issues. A poll found that only
29.8 percent of respondents believed that a President should be good
at handling domestic matters, whereas 49 percent said that he should
be adept at foreign policy. Secretary of State Marshall and Senator
Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan were given most of the credit for the
country's bipartisan foreign policy. Only 2.2 percent believed
Governor Dewey responsible and 9.4 percent, the President. Secretary
Marshall got credit from 43.1 percent of respondents and Senator
Vandenberg, from 21.4 percent.
Henry Wallace departed Shreveport, La., the previous night as
two eggs hit his plane while youths sang "Dixie" and
jeered him. His car had been splattered with half a dozen eggs in
Shreveport, though not hitting Mr. Wallace, and tomatoes had been
thrown at him in Monroe. In a radio address in Shreveport, he said
that he was hated by some because he believed in human freedom and
because it included equality for blacks. He said that the South did
not gain from race prejudice. "There is a long chain that
links unknown hoodlums in a North Carolina or Alabama mill town with
men in cutaway and finely tailored business suits—men who are
found in the great centers in New York and Boston—men who make
a dollar and cents profit by setting race against race in the far
way South." He then headed for Little Rock, Arkansas.
RNC chairman Hugh Scott demanded that the President say
whether he accepted the endorsement in 1944 by the Communist Party
of the Roosevelt-Truman ticket. Congressman Scott said that the
President was trying to "snuff out" Congressional
investigations of Communists by calling the inquiries "red
herrings". He wondered whether there was a working agreement
in 1944 between Senator Truman and the Communists and whether it had
ended. The President had reaffirmed the day before at a press
conference that the investigations were red herrings to distract
from inflation and other important domestic issues.
HUAC postponed until September 15 further spy hearings to
resolve the Alger Hiss and Whittaker Chambers controversy as to who
was telling the truth. In fact they would resume the following
Wednesday and Thursday in executive session, focusing again on the
mystery of the Model A Ford and its Babbittry.
Who's on third?
The truckers' strike in New York was spreading, with about
10,000 drivers and helpers idle, comprising half the city's trucks.
Deliveries of food and other necessary items had been curtailed.
Some smaller, independent stores continued to receive stock from
non-striking drivers. It appeared certain that the strike would
continue through Tuesday.
The NLRB asked a court in New York City to enforce its recent
order against the CIO-National Maritime Union using a hiring hall,
as it effectively violated Taft-Hartley by constituting the banned
closed shop.
A very severe earthquake struck the previous night about
7,900 miles from New York, according to the Fordham University
seismologist. The direction was undetermined. If you live there, we
hope you made it.
In Cramerton, N.C., a man who was buried under three feet of
dirt for twenty minutes before being rescued was calm when he
emerged, asking for a cigarette. The cave-in took place at a mill.
He had been able to get some air because there were large clods
which covered him. He said that the only thing which had worried him
was that they might use a pick to dig him out.
A Gulf hurricane was expected to hit the Cajun country in
South Louisiana the next afternoon or night. It was unknown as yet
how far northward it might penetrate. The storm had 35 to 45 mph
winds, reaching as high as 75 mph, hurricane force.
On the editorial page, "F. H. Cothran, a Kindly
Gentleman" tells of Mr. Cothran, industrialist who had just
passed away, having been, among other things, an editor of the
Piedmont & Northern Railway magazine which he published as the
railway's president. It quotes one of his editorials advising that
time was money and that every minute of spare time could be put to
good use. His editorials generally were about thrift, honesty,
ambition, hard work and love of country. He was especially
interested in young people.
He had begun his engineering career in 1899 and rose to
prominence constructing mines, designing railroads, and building
large power projects. He had developed much of the Duke Power
system.
He was a voracious reader and well informed on a variety of
subjects. He believed in the South and promoted diversification of
Southern industry and the application of scientific method to
agriculture.
It concludes that he did not waste his time on earth and was
held in affection and esteem by those who knew him.
"Queens' Evening College" tells of the need for a
night school for adults at Queens College in Charlotte. The school's
administration had answered the call and was preparing to meet that
need in the fall.
Southwestern University at Memphis and the University of
Louisville had piloted such successful programs.
It supports the Queens College effort as contributing to the
betterment of the adult populace in the area.
"The Lure of Lost Loot" tells of the search
ongoing along the Gulf Coast for the hidden treasure of pirate Jean
Lafitte, who had begun his existence in New Orleans as a blacksmith
after immigrating from France. He fought on the American side in the
War of 1812 because the British had insulted him. He had given
considerable aid in defeating the British.
Following the war, he continued his piratical ventures and
eventually fled to the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico where he died
after six years of exile. It was said that his lucre was buried
somewhere on the Gulf Coast.
It doubts that the treasure would ever be found, just as it
doubts that a rainbow existed with a pot of gold at its end, just as
it doubts that anyone ever gets something for nothing.
A piece from the New York Times, titled "Mr.
Wallace Makes an Offer", tells of Henry Wallace telling an
audience in Durham, N.C., the previous Sunday that he would offer a
real states' rights program, whereby the South would be delivered
from its economic bondage to Wall Street and absentee industrial
captains. He proposed advancing a billion dollars per year to the
South for four years to develop industry and agriculture. The money
would be raised by taxing the profits made from Southern labor in
farming and industry by the absentee captains.
The piece believes the plan made no sense economically as the
South had been doing well in recent years. The plan would also deter
outside capital from investing and such investments had their
benefits.
But, it posits, it made no sense to talk in terms of
economics to Mr. Wallace as he had to find a plausible moral basis
for his plan, accomplished by calling it "states' rights".
It finds him practicing demagogy. It adds that every good citizen
deplored breaking up his speeches with protests. Logic was the best
answer and logically he had answered himself.
We don't know about the aptness of the charge as applied to
Henry Wallace, but it was certainly apropos to Alabama Governor
George Wallace by 1963.
Robert Allen, substituting for vacationing Drew Pearson,
tells of the Newport, R.I., meeting of the Joint Chiefs having only
superficially resulted in an accord. Privately, the Navy and the Air
Force still had not resolved which service would be the primary
strategic bombing force. Defense Secretary James Forrestal ordered
them to stop quarreling and they had ostensibly obeyed. But
underneath the apparent rapprochement remained the bitter contest.
The Air Force believed that Secretary Forrestal as a former
Navy man was partial to the Navy. They cited the fact that a plan
suggested by Rear Admiral Dan Gallery to make the Navy the dominant
strategic bombing force was being quietly implemented even though
denied in the press while the Secretary of the Navy had reprimanded
Rear Admiral Gallery for making his proposal publicly.
After the meeting at Newport, Secretary Forrestal talked to
Governor Dewey regarding whether there would be "continuity of
policy" in running the Defense Department in a Dewey
Administration. Governor Dewey did not commit to reappointment of
Mr. Forrestal.
Two elderly women attended a Senate hearing on Henry Kaiser's
acquisition of a surplus Government steel plant in Cleveland. After
listening intently, they inquired of the counsel for Kaiser when the
hearings would get to Alger Hiss.
Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas had been barred from
the airwaves the previous Saturday night. Originally, he was
scheduled to speak to the Montana Bar Association and was told there
would be 4,000 persons in attendance and that the speech would be
broadcast. But when he arrived, he found that the meeting had been
switched to a hotel dining room accommodating only 250 people and
that the broadcast had been canceled at the behest of Anaconda
Copper Company which had threatened to withdraw a $500 contribution
to the Bar Association if Justice Douglas's speech were broadcast.
Notwithstanding, he went ahead with his speech, regarding the duty
of the legal profession to uphold freedoms of speech and press.
President Truman was having his portrait painted by a Polish
artist, Tade Styka, who had painted many leaders, such as Georges
Clemenceau and Marshal Foch. The artist said that the President was
an "accommodating subject".
American military occupation commander in Germany General
Lucius Clay had authorized the transportation of Jewish displaced
persons to the German border for migration to Palestine if they
desired. He believed it was humane and would reduce occupation
costs. The State Department, however, demanded that he lock them up
in the camps, effectively returning them to concentration camps. The
reason was that the British Foreign Office was refusing to allow any
Jewish immigration to Palestine from the British sector. More than
12,000 displaced persons were being held illegally by the British in
Cyprus behind barbed wire and many more thousands had been locked up
in the British sector of Germany. The British were doing so to
appease the Arabs.
The Palestine truce did not bar Jewish immigration unless the
persons were undergoing military training. But since the truce went
into effect, the British had done everything they could to prevent
immigration to Palestine.
General Clay had warned the Administration that any ban on
immigration could cause disturbances on the displaced persons camps.
Parts of families had already gone to Palestine and thus
interrupting the migration would cause separation of families.
Marquis Childs, in Denver, finds the people in the West not
appearing concerned about the Soviet conspiracy to take over the
country, which one would gather, from the headlines and the hearings
before HUAC, was uppermost in the country's consciousness. Nor was
there any danger evidenced that the people would turn to Communism
in any significant numbers.
HUAC, he ventures, reflected on the country, itself, in
suggesting that it might fall prey to Communism. Mr. Childs thinks
that chairman J. Parnell Thomas and the other members of the
Committee ought get out in the country, away from Washington, and
see firsthand the people and hear how they thought, worked and
played. The conspiracy advocates had developed the Red scare but the
ordinary people appeared not to feel it. The Communist network, to
the extent it existed, had not succeeded in undermining the faith in
the American system possessed by the great masses of the American
people.
Part of the harm was to undermine belief in basic American
freedoms. For if one witness could, on hearsay and undocumented
claims, come forward and accuse someone of disloyalty in the public
forum, basic liberties on which the country was founded were being
compromised.
He says that he did not doubt that there was a Soviet
espionage network in the country, just as one had been uncovered in
Canada in 1946. But that had been accomplished by a Royal Commission
issuing a report after in camera proceedings, keeping those
who were not directly implicated out of the report and the public
mind. It made its recommendations for prosecution and the accused
spies were prosecuted for espionage.
In this country, the FBI had always been a respected
investigatory body until the HUAC hearings. Now, people wondered
whether the FBI had been doing its job. If the FBI needed greater
power, he suggests, then it ought be provided. Perhaps, a
royal commission was necessary in the United States, he suggests, to
get at the facts. But, he reiterates, it would be good for HUAC
members to travel in the country and see and hear the people. It
would destroy their apparent illusion that America was about to fall
to Communism.
Max Hall discusses isotopes, a new word and concept to most
Americans who were not scientists. He explains that it was a variant
of an element with a different atomic weight from the principal
element of which it was an isotope, based on variation in numbers of
neutrons in the nucleus of each atom bearing the same number of
protons. At the time, there were 96 elements and more than 800
isotopes.
He offers as example carbon in the lead of a pencil
containing two isotopes, C-12 and C-13, present in all carbon
occurring in natural form. Scientists could produce artificially
C-10, C-11, and C-14, each of which was radioactive, that is
emitting rays which could be measured by instruments. Radioactive
isotopes were truncated to "radio-isotopes". Each of the
elements had radio-isotopes either naturally or artificially
produced.
Cyclotrons had been producing radio-isotopes since before the
war. The atom bomb project had produced significant amounts for the
first time as byproducts of the materials used for the bomb.
Isotopes were beneficial in acting as tracer elements to
study physical reactions and treat diseases in humans. They were
used in botany to study plant life and how fertilizers pass through
plants, to make agriculture more efficient. The isotopes also
produced rays to treat diseases. One such isotope of iodine was
being used to treat thyroid gland problems, as iodine was naturally
attracted to the gland and could be used to treat the diseased area
when the isotope's rays were directed to it.
A letter from the pastor of the Thomasboro Baptist Church
comments on the August 31 editorial "Beer & Wine to the
Bootleggers", finds it remarkable that a person as smart as
the editor could be so dumb on beer, wine, and liquor. They were all
causes of drunkenness and licentiousness. He believes that safety of
human life from drunken murder was worth more than millions of
dollars in blood money.
A letter from the superintendent of the Charlotte District of
the Methodist Church thanks News reporter Tom Fesperman for
providing an article on the beer and wine referendum in Gaston
County the previous week. He thinks that Mr. Fesperman had done a
fair job of presenting the facts of both sides of the argument.
A letter writer thinks that the demonstration against Henry
Wallace in the state the previous several days, involving loud
taunts and throwing of eggs and tomatoes, should cause thinking and
intelligent people to hang their heads in shame. He had never
witnessed such conduct previously. He finds the conduct
anti-democratic, opposing of free speech. He finds it remarkable
that such conduct had taken place in Charlotte at the Wallace rally
on the Courthouse steps. He also chides the protesters for wasting
eggs and tomatoes when people in Europe were, in some cases,
desperate for adequate food.
He predicts that the American people would elect Mr. Wallace
President.
