The Charlotte News
Wednesday, January 19, 1949
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that in China, the Nationalist Government of Chiang Kai-Shek, through the executive Yuan, asked for a formal, unconditional mutual ceasefire so that immediate negotiations could begin to end the three-year old civil war with the Communists.
The news report pointed out that the legislative Yuan or council would have to approve the actions taken by the executive Yuan, composed of eleven ministers, four commissions and two administrative bodies. The Yuan operated only with the approval of the executive council of the Kuomintang, which in turn took orders from Chiang. Premier Sun Fo reportedly had threatened to resign if no decision to negotiate were made at this date's meeting. The majority of the executive Yuan had pushed the vote through to initiate the negotiations despite the absence of explicit approval by Chiang. A diehard minority was said to have desired making Nanking a second Tientsin and fighting to the last man. Some of the majority also expressed fear that they would be killed as war criminals by the Communists before they could begin peace negotiations. Such had occurred to one peace delegate in Peiping, where, on Monday, an eleven-member peace delegation proceeded under a flag of truce to confer with the Communists. They were expected to return shortly with word of the negotiations.
Foreign diplomats were informed that the Government would begin on Friday to transfer operations to Canton, to the south of Nanking.
At a press conference, Undersecretary of State Robert Lovett, whose resignation would become effective as soon as his successor James Webb could be confirmed by the Senate and sworn in, called on the Russians for action rather than words in effecting better relations with the West. Recently, Italian Communist Party leader Palmiro Togliatti and French leader Marcel Cachin had issued statements indicating a desire for better relations. The Undersecretary said that while the U.S. was interested in these statements, it wanted to see concrete moves from Moscow to end the cold war.
Mr. Lovett also denied reports that the British had agreed to recognize Israel as a quid pro quo for the U.S. agreement to a British plan for peace in the Middle East. He said that there had been discussion of British recognition of Israel with British Ambassador to the U.S. Sir Oliver Franks, as made plain by Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin in Commons the previous day that the British were unilaterally considering, but no offer of barter on the point.
Undersecretary Lovett was Acting Secretary in the absence of Secretary Marshall until new Secretary Dean Acheson could be sworn in either the next day or Friday.
Two key officials of ERP, deputy administrator Howard Bruce and information director Bryan Houston, tendered their resignations to return to private sector positions.
In Washington, crowds began to form for the following day's inauguration of President Truman and the ensuing parade from the Capitol to the White House. It was estimated that between 500,000 and 750,000 people would attend, with room being made available in 25,000 local homes for the overflow.
—But you're not bringing that dog in heya, you heaya? You hitch him outside.
—Well, you can sleep outside with him then. This heya's Washin'ton, not Georgia.
The President and Governor Thomas Dewey, his opponent in the late election, exchanged good wishes. The President signed the bill hurriedly passed by Congress to declare a four-day weekend to Federal workers in Washington for the inauguration.
The Democratically-controlled Senate defeated an emergency measure to grant tax exempt status to the inauguration tickets, normally taxed at 20 percent. A Republican maneuver had killed the bill.
The weather in Washington showed no signs of rain or snow in the forecast. It was expected to be cloudy with temperatures of 38 to 40 degrees.
Food prices reached a twenty-month low on the Dun & Bradstreet wholesale food index.
The NLRB ruled that a union shop provision in the bituminous coal agreement between operators and the UMW was illegal. Under Taft-Hartley, a union shop agreement was legal only by vote of a majority of the employees in an NLRB-supervised election. And, also pursuant to Taft-Hartley, UMW could not partake of NLRB services as long as it refused to abide by the Taft-Hartley requirement of a statement of non-Communist affiliation by its officers.
Off the New Jersey coast, ten Coast Guardsmen were killed and at least nineteen injured in the fiery crash between the Coast Guard cutter Eastwind and a tanker, Gulfstream, occurring in a thick fog. Seventy-eight uninjured crew members of the cutter were removed to another ship and 42 uninjured crew members of the tanker remained aboard as it proceeded on its own power to New York. Many Coast Guardsmen had remained aboard the burning Eastwind to try to prevent the fire from spreading to the vessel's ammunition store.
Near Riverside, California, a 30-inch natural gas pipeline at rural Moreno broke, requiring evacuation of the community's 200 residents. The fumes could be detected at March Air Force Base, five miles away.
In Morris, Ind., a break in the Big Inch natural gas pipeline had been burning for nine hours. The fire, caused by an electrical arc at a pumping station when power was interrupted, was now reported under control after gas was cut off to the line at its source in Longview, Texas.
In Columbia, S.C., a proposal was made to the General Assembly to repeal the state's poll tax of one dollar on all males aged 21 to 60. A previous proposal had only sought elimination of the tax as a prerequisite to voting.
Dick Young of The News reports that Mayor Herbert Baxter of Charlotte had warned two local cab companies, Red Top and Victory, that they would have to comply by February 1 with an order of the City Council issued December 8 to install adequate telephone dispatch facilities or risk being shut down.
Weather in Kansas City was extremely cold after a paralyzing snowstorm had hit the area the previous day leaving behind eight inches. Throughout the plains states temperatures hit new lows for the winter, down to 25 below zero.
In Nash County, Tenn., the Sheriff was roaming the countryside a few days earlier when he came upon a man working in his front yard on what appeared to be a copper still. The man informed the Sheriff that the device was actually a "washpot", to which the Sheriff inquired where its handles were. The man, still with some copper tubing, quickly utilized it to add two handles.
On the editorial page, "A One-Sided Proposal" finds Governor Kerr Scott's proposal for a 200-million dollar bond referendum to improve rural roads to be generally worthwhile but failing to address the need for roads elsewhere than in rural areas of the state. The population was divided equally between rural and urban dwellers and about half of all travel took place in urban areas. About one-sixth of the roads in the state, 6,000 miles, were in urban areas and yet only a million dollars annually was allocated by the Legislature to maintain those roads, the rest of the burden falling on the cities and towns.
The League of Municipalities had recommended that one-sixth of the gas tax revenue be returned to the cities and towns for road maintenance. The piece considers it reasonable in light of the 50 percent contribution of the taxes by urban dwellers, those living in towns of more than 2,000 population. The piece warns that otherwise, with the Governor's road package limited to rural roads, the urban population might vote down the bond issue.
"Billions for a Bonus" tells of no great sentiment among veterans of World War II in favor of a bonus. But the major national veterans organizations, such as the American Legion, VFW, and Amvets, were promoting it. The American Legion wanted a flat monthly bonus of $60 per month paid to veterans of both world wars, starting at age 55, increasing to $75 per month at 65.
Congressman John Rankin of Mississippi had introduced a bill embodying the VFW proposal for a bonus of $3 per day for domestic service and $4 for foreign service, that is $90 or $120 per month for life, regardless of age.
The Amvets proposed a bonus in the form of Government bonds redeemable in six years, at a cost to the Treasury of 40 billion dollars.
The piece regards the plans as bids for membership in the respective organizations promoting each plan, and suggests that veterans would be better served were the organizations to turn their attention to appropriate compensation and care for veterans who had suffered disabilities from the war.
"A Program for Race Peace" tells of UNC sociology Professor Howard Odum having recently published in The Southern Packet, an Asheville publication, a piece in which he set forth a 21-point plan to erode racial prejudice and pave the way for the progress of democracy in the South. Essentially, he recommended that the Southern states abide by Supreme Court decisions relating to integration, cease lawlessness and violence, eliminate segregation in practicable areas such as public transportation, guarantee the right of all citizens to vote and eliminate the poll tax in the few remaining states where it was still law, pass anti-lynching laws, and "stop being afraid of democracy".
The piece finds the recommendations not startling but practical in scope, ones which the South ought adopt before the program Dr. Odum outlined was imposed from without by the Federal Government, replete with greater strictures and offending Southern pride in the process.
W. J. Cash, incidentally, in 1929 and 1930, exchanged correspondence multiple times with Dr. Odum while formulating the initial concepts, such as his "Man at the Center", the "Proto-Dorian" convention, and the "old Irishman", as fictional figures through which to represent the development through time of the Southern cultural mind, as he began writing The Mind of the South.
In 1938, President Roosevelt had adopted Dr. Odum's 1936 thesis that the South was the nation's "Number One Economic Problem", as set forth in the latter's Southern Regions.
"Disappearing Ideals" comments on Eleanor Roosevelt's irritation with the Soviets for refusing to permit Russian brides of American G.I.'s to emigrate from Russia. The piece suggests that her disillusionment must have been comparable to that of the late Eduard Benes of Czechoslovakia, who said shortly before his death that he had misplaced reliance on effecting peace between his country and Russia, that he had come to realize that all Communists, especially those of Russia, lied. He had believed President Klement Gottwald's assurances of Russian good intentions, but had come to understand that Mr. Gottwald was lying.
It concludes that the country had come to realize daily since the war that it was impossible to do business with the Politburo, a lesson which had proved very expensive.
Drew Pearson suggests to President Truman that he help the fund-raising effort for the March of Dimes, begun by President Roosevelt to provide care for polio victims and conduct research in quest of a cure, by recording his piano music, perhaps accompanied by the singing of his daughter Margaret, and providing the sales proceeds from the record to the March of Dimes. He says that "Missouri Waltz" and "Anchors Aweigh" played by the President would sell in the millions. (Mr. Pearson describes the former as one of the President's favorites, whereas the President had said not long after coming to the office that he had never cared for the tune.)
Mr. Pearson had even floated the
idea with ASCAP head Fred Ahlert, writer of "I'll Get By"
The seven year old daughter of Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee had invited all the girls of her school class to ride on the Tennessee float in the inaugural parade. Since it depicted a garden, she believed that it would be good to have little girls populating the garden. When her parents found out about the invitation, the idea was torpedoed in favor of having a little girl of each Tennessee Congressman ride on the float with young Ms. Kefauver. Mrs. Kefauver was therefore busy calling the mothers of the little girls who had been invited to explain why they could not ride in the parade on the float.
Trouble
Five hundred out-of-town detectives,
paid $30 per day, were going to be utilized to augment the Secret
Service during the inauguration. They would be wearing a secret sign
Defeated Republican Senator Curley Brooks of Illinois had raised the money for the inauguration, thinking it would be for Thomas Dewey. Now he could scarcely obtain two tickets to it, himself. Senators therefore were referring to the inauguration as "Curley Brooks's Wake".
Oklahoma's Flying L Quartet, who usually sung without accompaniment, were seeking to enlist President Truman to play with them on the piano.
Stewart Alsop tells of a key visit to the White House by CIO and Steelworkers Union head Philip Murray, CIO secretary-treasurer James Carey, Amalgamated Clothing Workers president Jacob Potofsky, Textile Workers of America president Emil Rieve, and CIO general counsel Arthur Goldberg—the latter a future Supreme Court Justice, appointed by President Kennedy, and subsequently U.N. Ambassador, appointed by President Johnson. The visit took place shortly before the President's State of the Union in which he outlined his "Fair Deal", and as the labor leaders were leaving, gave the President a three-page memorandum briefing what they hoped his State of the Union message would contain.
While the message differed in particulars from the memo, the overall theme was similar. The President did not seek outright repeal of Taft-Hartley, for instance, but rather wanted retention of the bans on jurisdictional strikes and secondary boycotts while repealing the remainder of the law; he did not seek an excess profits tax as he had previously championed, but rather a four billion dollar tax hike, primarily aimed at upper level and corporate income. He also sought standby authority for implementing wage and price controls, which labor did not want. He did seek, however, authorization for the Government to build steel mills should voluntary steel production fail to meet the country's pressing needs, a concept supported by CIO. UAW president Walter Reuther had argued previously before the Council of Economic Advisers in favor of the Government having authority to build steel plants.
While there were sinister interpretations of these facts to be gleaned, that the President was now the captive of labor, the result was simply a function of politics, that the labor platform, with the exception of the steel proposal not made during the campaign, had won the President the election and so it was only natural that he would wish to have a program consistent with that platform.
Labor was not seeking, however, broad socialization of industries as in Britain and Europe. Instead, they were seeking a more cohesive program postwar than that begun under the New Deal as an incoherent program. The basic concepts, subsidized parity for farmers, minimum wages and maximum weekly hours, public housing, Federal aid to education, and health care for the poor and aged, had now been broadly accepted. President Truman was expanding these concepts beyond the New Deal of FDR but nevertheless had not incurred the ire thus far of conservatives, as had the New Deal. Indeed, leading Republicans such as Governor Thomas Dewey and Senator Robert Taft had come to embrace these concepts and urge them.
Marquis Childs suggests that the fall of another Greek Government stood as harbinger for potential chaos in that country lest American policy toward it be substantially revised. If not, bankruptcy would likely be the result in Greece, with the U.S. left holding the bag.
Most observers agreed that the the situation in Greece had become worse in the previous 18 months, during which time Truman Doctrine aid had been provided. There were now 26,000 guerrillas, whereas before the military aid program had begun, there were but 21,000.
The U.N. had found that Yugoslavia and Albania were supporting the guerrillas. But in the Peloponnesus area, which shared no border with any Soviet satellite country, guerrilla activity was nevertheless increasing.
Most of the independent press in Greece was critical of the U.S. for too much intervention in the internal affairs of the country while never making clear the American mission's objectives. Others, however, suggested that the U.S. had not intervened enough.
Mr. Childs finds the fault in the failure of the U.S. mission in Greece to make clear its policy, a criticism leveled by the British. He believes that the U.S. had tied itself too much to Greek reactionaries from the past and thus had done little more than maintain a status quo, the success of which was limited.
He counsels Congress to consider long and hard the request of Secretary of Defense Forrestal to grant authority to him to send military missions wherever the Defense Department deemed it necessary for security. Military men often became carried away with their own zeal without appreciation of the political and economic consequences of a particular course of military action.
He urges new Secretary of State Dean Acheson to use Greece as a model for what could and could not be accomplished, and that if so used, it could stand as a valuable object lesson.
A letter writer provides open letters sent to new Senator J. Melville Broughton and local Congressman Hamilton Jones complaining of the cancellation by the Veterans Administration of the planned veterans' hospitals in Charlotte and Salisbury. He urges that the projects be restored.
A letter writer complains of the editorial "Seventeen Senators and Majority Rule", which had favored ban of the filibuster, thinks the newspaper ought support the effort to allow the Southern Senators to block civil rights legislation.
He posits that if filibuster were to be outlawed on the principle that majority will should not be overridden, then the President's veto power also ought be outlawed.
Well, you will have to take that latter up with the Founders, pal, as it is in the Constitution, whereas the filibuster is allowed only by Senate rules, subject to change at any time on the will of the requisite majority of Senators.
You may not like our country here as
a whole, in which case you are free to course wherever you please
elsewhere. We suggest Argentina for its country air. Perhaps, El
Presidente will invite you to dinner and decorate
A Quote of the Day: "In an Alabama town 1,000 hens laid 798 eggs in one day, leaving 202 hens that thought it was Sunday." —Anniston (Ala.) Star
That assumes
naively that there were no double layers
Framed Edition
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