Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the four military
governors of Berlin met again this date, for the fifth time in five
days, trying to effect a solution to the blockade crisis.
The Communists in Berlin formed a "three-party
democratic bloc" to try to wrest power from the
anti-Communists in the City Government. The Communists said that the
Christian Democrats, the Liberal Democrats, and the Soviet-sponsored
Socialist Unity Party would join the Communists in the move. The
Communist press meanwhile assailed Germans in Bonn seeking to
establish a West German government, calling the effort "high
treason".
In Paris, Robert Schuman, who had not been able to form a new
Cabinet after receiving majority support from the National Assembly
to become the new head of the French Government and, in consequence,
had resigned, withdrew his resignation and said that he would try
again to form a government. The move was seen as an attempt to quell
Communist Party action in taking advantage of the lack of a
government, as more than 100,000 workers staged demonstrations
seeking increased wages. M. Schuman had been Premier earlier in the
year.
In Warsaw, Zygmunt Kaczynski, chief spokesman for the
Catholic hierarchy in Poland, was freed 72 hours after his arrest by
the Polish security police, following accusation of participation in
"anti-state activities". It was the first time anyone so
charged had been released so quickly, investigations usually taking
a year or more to complete. Mr. Kaczynski would be kept under
surveillance—just as the Hollywood movie community by the
functional equivalent body of law enforcement personnel.
In Amsterdam, Queen Wilhemina, 68, abdicated the throne of
the Netherlands after occupying it for 50 years, including her term
of exile during the war. She turned over the crown to her daughter
Juliana, 39.
Also in the Netherlands, an American sergeant died in the
hospital after parachuting from his stricken B-29 the previous day
when one of the engines failed during an exercise conducted by the
British to test air defenses.
The World Council of Churches went on record officially as
being against both Communism and unfettered capitalism. It also
opposed those who fomented war and urged opposition to "terror,
cruelty and race discrimination".
Thirty thousand natives of Camiguin Island in the Philippines
were rescued from the erupting Hibokhibok volcano. It was the first
eruption since 1871. No one had been killed and no Americans were
believed to be in the area.
In Nashville, Henry Wallace, speaking before 5,000 people,
became the object of another egg-thrower, albeit missing the target,
hitting two photographers. It appeared, in fact, that the hurlers
were actually aiming at the press more than at Mr. Wallace. Perhaps,
they were actually backers of the candidate—not unlike those
faux "protesters" who were on the audio scaffolding
that time at the Nixon rally at Greensboro Airport in October, 1972,
which we happened to attend just for the fun of it. The very vocal
protesters, whose goat, as far as the crowd was concerned, was too
easily gotten by the President, were playing Woodstock in miniature,
no doubt, we glean from subsequent revelations generally, coached in
the matter by one of the representatives of CREEP.
Mr. Wallace headed to Knoxville for the last appearance on
his Southern tour, a speech before a black church. He said that
despite the hostile treatment in some places, his faith in the South
had not been shaken. He hoped that one result of his tour would be
increased black voter registration. Whereas only 100,000 blacks were
eligible to vote in the South in 1946, he indicated that 700,000
would be eligible in the fall, given the new voting laws pursuant to lower Federal Court and
Supreme Court rulings banning discrimination in voter eligibility.
Some Southern Congressional candidates were attempting to
have their names placed on both the Democratic and Dixiecrat
tickets. DNC officials said that the party would not attempt to
thwart the move but that any such dual candidates might be asked to
give up positions they held with the DNC.
Dixiecrat presidential candidate Strom Thurmond said, in
response to the demand that Dixiecrats resign their position as
committeemen with the DNC, that it was "like the tail trying
to throw the dog out of the kennel". He believed that the
Northerners had bolted the Democratic Party, not the Dixiecrats.
DNC chairman J. Howard McGrath criticized RNC chairman Hugh
Scott for having suggested the previous day that the President had
not refused the endorsement of the Communist Party for the
Roosevelt-Truman ticket of 1944, calling upon the President to say
whether he had or had not accepted the endorsement. Senator McGrath
called the statement a "blue-blooded herring", the
"creation of the gentleman who once boasted that the
Republicans are the 'best stock' and therefore 'should take over'
the Government."
Congressman Scott had said that the President's labeling as a
"red herring" the HUAC and Senate Investigating
Committee hearings into Communist espionage by Americans, was an
attempt to extinguish the investigations.
A strike had begun by 16,000 CIO oil workers on the West
Coast, demanding a wage increase of 21 cents per hour. The companies
had offered 12.5 cents. Western states would face a gasoline
shortage from the strike within a few days, according to an industry
statement. Harry Bridges, head of the International Longshoremen's
and Warehousemen's Union, said that the strike would last four to
six months. The President had stated that nothing could be done
under Taft-Hartley to halt the strike as all regulations had been
satisfied.
In New York City, the trucking strike continued.
A Gulf hurricane slashed through Southeastern Louisiana,
battering New Orleans, during the morning hours. As it moved toward
Mississippi, it was reduced to gale force winds of between 60 and 70
mph, hurricanes starting at 76 mph. There was no reported loss of
life and property damage in New Orleans, protected by a sea wall,
was slight. Some streets in the city were flooded after seven inches
of rain had fallen the previous night. On September 19, 1947, water
was driven in from the Gulf, flooding about 50 miles of Jefferson
Parish, including a large residential area.
The National Air Race got underway at Cleveland. The Air
Force, in an unprecedented entry, would seek through the F-86 Sabre jet
fighter to break the Navy's record speed of 650 mph, set in a
research plane. The pilot would be Major Richard L. Johnson, a
one-time chicken raiser from North Dakota, who had flown 180 combat
missions during the war in the Mediterranean. It was believed that
the F-86 could reach 670 mph—which is about 600 mph faster than the
F-85 with a tail-wind. Or maybe the latter was so fast, it circled
the globe before you could even see it moving.
The Bendix cross-country air race was part of the three-day
event. Paul Mantz—to be killed in 1965 during stunt flying for
the film "Flight of the Phoenix"—had won the event in
1946 and 1947 but would use a different plane in 1948. Jacqueline
Cochran, who had come in second in 1946, would fly again in 1948.
She had not flown the previous year.
North Carolina Superior Court Judge Wilson Warlick, who had
been appointed by the President to the Federal District Court but
had not yet been confirmed, causing his appointment temporarily to
be withdrawn until 1949, ordered the man accused of killing the
15-year old unwed mother to be held without bond and bound over for
trial on the murder charge. His wife, who had originally confessed
to the shooting and then recanted, claiming her confession had been
made under duress from her husband, was also bound over for trial on
the charge. No mention is made of the original co-defendant, owner
of the house in which the murder occurred, originally arrested as an
accomplice.
Dr. George Crane describes the case of Irene F. on the back
page in his daily column on modern psychology.
We never heard of her. We feel terribly lost and
ill-informed, indeed, panic-stricken.
On the editorial page, "Benes, Champion of Liberty" laments the passing at age 64 of former Czech President Eduard Benes after a
year-long illness. He had resigned in June as President,
in the wake of the February coup by the Communists. He deserved, it
posits, to die happy, but probably died sad, given the turn in his
country of late. He, along with Thomas Masaryk, had founded the
Czech Republic in 1918 following the overthrow of control by the
Austro-Hungarian Empire. Mr. Benes had initially been Foreign
Minister while Mr. Masaryk was President. He had supported the
League of Nations and traveled Europe extensively for 15 years in
that capacity, was elected president of the 16th League Assembly.
In 1938, when the Munich Pact was signed and the Sudetenland
was carved from Czech territory, he went into voluntary exile, five
months before Hitler gobbled up the rest of Czechoslovakia. He had
signed a twenty-year mutual assistance pact with Russia and had to
watch the Russians slowly take over in 1946 when he returned from
exile to be President. Communist Leader Klement Gottwald became
Premier and slowly enabled the takeover which became final in
February.
To Czechs, he was a symbol of liberty and security. It
suggests that his passing might break the spirit of those who
believed in democracy in the country, having already suffered the
suicide of Jan Masaryk, son of Thomas, earlier in the year in
protest of the Communist takeover. But likely, it finds, the Czechs
would become stronger and Mr. Benes would lead them in death as he
had in life.
"The Peckerwoods Take Over" refers to Louisiana
politics, with Earl Long, brother of the late Governor and Senator
Huey Long, having become Governor, and Russell Long, Huey Long's
son, now having been elected Senator by winning the Democratic
primary.
Huey Long had been assassinated in 1935. He used to tell the
peckerwoods that he was just an old peckerwood, too. They were not
hard to fool when told he was on their side as he quoted Psalms
and snapped his galluses, sprinkling a few "ain'ts"
and "y'alls" into the rhetorical mix. He had followed
the pattern as had the late Eugene Talmadge in Georgia. It was a
simple pattern, based on appeal to emotion, an important part of the
politics of the South.
Education, radio and a more vigilant print press in the South
would begin to interrupt the pattern, but for now it remained in
certain areas alive and well, if tottering a bit. Russell Long had
only beaten his opponent by a narrow margin. It concludes that the
future was bright if still not yet realized.
"Bishop John Long Jackson" tells of the death of
the Rt. Reverend, bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Diocese of
Louisiana, having stirred a sense of loss in Charlotte where he had
made many friends as rector of St. Martin's Church between 1914 and
1940, when the church grew from 140 members to 713 by 1937.
A piece from the Greenville (S.C.) News, titled "A
Piedmont Builder", eulogizes Frank Cothran, industrialist of
Charlotte who had died during the week and whose biography was
presented the previous day in the editorial column as well as on the
front page two days earlier. The piece states that Mr. Cothran's
death was mourned throughout the area.
Robert Allen, substituting for vacationing Drew Pearson,
tells of the Justice Department planning to crack down on four
prominent lobbyists, one of whom had been significant in the effort
to sidetrack the bill to remove the discriminatory tax on margarine.
A White House guard had recently detained Supreme Court
Justice William O. Douglas when he tried to leave the White House by
a side entrance after visiting the President.
Senator Edward Robertson of Wyoming had issued an invitation
to Governor Dewey to come support him in his tough re-election bid.
No response had yet been forthcoming.
Joe Borkin, ace former Justice Department official, commented
on an unnamed crony of the President, saying that every time he
opened his mouth, his shoelaces fell out.
First Lady Bess Truman and First Daughter Margaret were
planning to be active for the President on the campaign trail. Mrs.
Dewey and a son would also be campaigning for the Governor.
Henry Wallace lieutenants candidly admitted in private that
they did not expect to carry a single state—an accurate
prediction.
Representative Everett Dirksen, retiring from Congress, was a
good bet for Secretary of Agriculture under President Dewey.
Mr. Dirksen, instead, would successfully run for the Senate
in 1950.
Senator Joseph Ball was trailing Minneapolis Mayor Hubert
Humphrey by eight points in the Minnesota Senate race.
Dave Beck, West Cost Teamsters leader, was planning to back
the Dewey-Warren ticket. He was a friend of Governor Warren.
Phillip Mullen, member of the Mississippi Legislature, was
waging a campaign in his state against race hatred.
India had embarked on a large military program.
The Pentagon had revealed that Chinese Nationalists and
Chinese Communists, based on their claims, had each killed more of
their rivals than both had in their armies.
A popular tourist treat in Washington's historic Harvey's
Restaurant was smoked oysters.
The Army's new B-49 would enter production at one per week
starting in November, replacing the B-36 as the most powerful plane
in the world.
A favorite pastime of General Eisenhower was cooking.
The Senate chaplain, the Reverend Peter Marshall, said that
while there was no politics in prayer, there should be more prayer
in politics.
Marquis Childs, in Santa Monica, visits the family of
Governor Earl Warren, a typical family, he finds. They had been
spending the summer in a cabin near Santa Monica, with access to the
beach.
Don't we all?
Beneath the charm of his family, Governor Warren was a shrewd
politician. He understood that in the West, water was a core issue,
necessary to sustain the phenomenal growth since prior to the war.
It brought Governor Warren face to face with an issue many had
accused him of ducking, the provision in the Bureau of Reclamation
Act which limited each individual to 160 acres of irrigation from a
Government project, 320 acres for a married couple.
In the Central Valley of California, large corporate
landowners insisted that the limitation did not apply to them as
they held the land before the proposed reclamation project.
Bank of America had been a strong opponent of the limitation,
as had California Senator Sheridan Downey.
Governor Warren favored a water grid, similar to a power
grid, to assure distribution as equitably as possible in all areas
where water was required. He believed that there should be no
arbitrary limit on irrigation and favored a compromise in the
Central Valley. The defenders of the limit argued that a compromise
would undermine all limits and lead to corporate farms maintained at
taxpayer expense. Governor Warren did not side with Senator Downey
in absolutely opposing the limit.
The Governor's stance on power was more clear-cut, believing
that the Government should provide dams and distribute the power
they created for the benefit of the public. He was quite aware that
many in the Republican Congress opposed this approach.
The Governor was cautious and patient and it was unclear to
what degree he would act on the beliefs he held. But, Mr. Childs
opines, he would not be content to preside over the Senate as
Vice-President and merely umpire the action.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop examine the candidates as they
began the fall campaign for the presidency. Governor Dewey had
surrounded himself with progressive Republican advisers. Future
Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his brother, future CIA
director Allen, Congressman Christian Herter, future Secretary of
State succeeding Mr. Dulles, and future Kennedy and Johnson National
Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy, formed a committee on foreign
policy. Congressman Everett Dirksen, future Senate Minority Leader
during the 1960's, and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., future GOP
vice-presidential nominee in 1960 and Ambassador to South Vietnam
under President Kennedy, among other diplomatic posts, were
assisting Mr. Dewey in speech-drafting on domestic issues.
Mr. Bundy, they point out, had collaborated with Walter
Lippmann in writing an as-yet unpublished work and had assisted with
the autobiography of former Secretary of State and Secretary of War
Henry Stimson. It was believed that his next assignment would be to
modernize the Ten Commandments.
Mr. Dewey's choice of such progressive assistants did not
bode well for the Republican Old Guard.
The campaign strategy was to make only ten or twelve key
speeches, maintaining the high road the while and trying not to
engage in tit-for-tat with the President. The extent to which the
strategy would be maintained would depend on how well Mr. Truman
appeared to fare.
The President's strategy was to crisscross the country,
making whistle-stops along the way. His first major appearance of
the campaign would be in Detroit on Labor Day, where an audience of
25,000 was expected to hear him, addressing primarily labor and the
farmers, the core support for his campaign. Labor was dissatisfied
with Taft-Hartley, knew that the President had vetoed it. CIO and
AFL had formed a reluctant unity around him. Farmers were happy over
high prices, even if the consumers were dismayed by them. The
President's plans, however, would be governed by the DNC pocketbook
which was ailing.
The Alsops comment that the financial disparity between the
two parties was unhealthy and might require careful post-election
study, presumably suggesting some form of public financing as had
been proposed. They conclude that if the campaign went as predicted
and Thomas Dewey were elected, then having an election in time of
world crisis would not be so damaging as had been supposed.
A letter to the editor from A. W. Black comments on the eggs
and tomatoes thrown in North Carolina at various stops at Henry
Wallace, believes that the newspapers should not be criticizing the
hurlers. It was, he says, Mr. Wallace who failed to understand mass
psychology.
So if someone murders a person or assassinates a political
figure out of disagreement with what they have to say, we suppose,
Mr. Black, that it is the victim's fault for miscalculating the
extent of response of the murderer or assassin, the magnitude of his
or her insanity?
A letter writer from Detroit, saying he was against Mr.
Wallace, finds nevertheless the treatment of him to run counter to
Southern traditions of graciousness and chivalry. He suggests that
Charlotteans ought be ashamed, that the treatment suggested that
they did not believe in freedom of speech. The city, he ventures,
was more foolish than Mr. Wallace.
A letter writer from Los Angeles, born in Abbeville, S.C.,
writes a letter to Governor Gregg Cherry expressing pride in North
Carolinians for showing, in their rejection of former Vice-President
Wallace, that they would not abide Communists. He suggests that
their noses had been sensitive to a "rotten fish".
