The Charlotte News
Thursday, January 27, 1949
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President had asked Secretary of State Dean Acheson to develop plans for a system of skills to improve the standard of living of underdeveloped nations, per the President's enunciated program in his inaugural address. He said that the Marshall Plan was already doing some of these tasks.
Secretary of War Kenneth Royall told the House Armed Services Committee that he believed war was possible with the Soviets, but not imminent within the next several years. The Committee was holding hearings to determine the size of the Air Force, whether 48 combat groups under the President's proposed budget, 70 groups as approved by the previous Congress, or somewhere in between.
Senator Richard Russell
The Senate raised the amount of relief for snowbound Western states to three million dollars, primarily to save starving sheep and cattle stranded by the recent storms.
Let us all doff our hats now, friends, and again say a prayer for the little lambs who have lost their way.
In Tulsa, Oklahoma, a rent control revolt by landlords began with issuance wholesale of eviction notices to withdraw rental properties from the market within 60 days, involving potentially three thousand renters, mostly low income. The revolt was led by Rev. Wallace Murphy, a Baptist minister who was executive secretary of the Tulsa Property Owners Association, and obviously a Christian sort. The President described it as a "poor approach" to rent control legislation and predicted the revolt would not succeed. Congressman Wright Patman of Texas told the property owners association that he believed the courts would enjoin the mass action, though technically within the letter of the law, as the notices were not served in good faith.
Veterans groups proposed to the House Veterans Affairs Committee billions in bonuses for veterans of both world wars.
The Senate confirmed the appointment of James Webb as Undersecretary of State.
The anti-Dewey Republicans were continuing to press in their meeting in Omaha for the removal of Congressman Hugh Scott as the RNC chairman.
Three housing measures were proposed to the Congress.
In New York, a five-year old girl sat quietly in the hospital staring at her red toy telephone which a relative had given to her. Her father had tossed her six-year old brother to his death on January 7 from a 150-foot high bridge in Brooklyn, tossed the little girl after him, and then committed suicide. The little girl could not talk from shock but clung to life, whimpering. The previous day, however, she reached for the telephone beside her and spun the dial, producing a bell, then called for "Mommy".
In Raleigh, a State Senate committee approved a bill which would cut the number of inspections of motor vehicles from two to one per year. A bill to abolish the program had been submitted to the House.
The Chief Highway Engineer complied with a request by Governor Kerr Scott to resign his post.
Ralph Gibson of The News reports of a Superior Court Judge in Charlotte criticizing the magistrate system and urging legislation to correct or abolish it, in the wake of the abuses exposed by a grand jury investigation in Charlotte. The judge had just sentenced Magistrate J. S. Turner on his plea of nolo contendere to malfeasance in office arising from the scheme of having a constable roust black citizens on trumped-up gambling charges at night and bringing them before the magistrate who then released them on payment of excessive costs, a practice the judge described as a "drumhead court-martial". The extortion charge against the defendant was dismissed. Mr. Turner was sentenced to a year suspended on payment of a $250 fine with the condition that he resign his post and make up any shortages within six months after completion of a County audit.
In Rome, actor Tyrone Power and
actress Linda Christian were married
Inexplicably, an inserted bulletin tells of Mr. Power being granted in Los Angeles the final divorce decree from his prior wife, "eight months after he married Linda Christian in Rome." We trust that it is a misprint for "minutes", or we are in the midst of evidence of a time warp out of a black hole in the universe.
Here is another clue in the "Mr.
X" contest, provided you did not peek and contribute to
spoliation of next Christmas for needy families: Mr. X's last name, albeit under a different spelling,
may be found here
On the editorial page, "Soviet Peace Offensive" tells of the New York Times informing of Josef Stalin in 1934 having stated that the strategy of the Communist Party changed with the times and "historical turns", and so it being not surprising to see the "peace offensive" of Western European Communist parties—as further discussed by Joseph Alsop and Sumner Welles below.
It finds such "turns" in the thorough defeat of Henry Wallace in the U.S. presidential election, the continued prosperity in the U.S., continued and increasing support by Americans of a big defense program and extensive foreign aid, action to uncover American Communists, setbacks by Communists in their attempt to win over the French and Italians, the firm stand of the Western allies in Berlin, disaffection among Soviet satellites, especially in Yugoslavia, the building of the Western Alliance, and success of the Marshall Plan.
In addition, Moscow apparently believed, in light of the sudden fall of China to the Communists, that the Soviets should take advantage of that situation, thus diverting attention from its efforts in Western Europe. Russia, it finds, was playing a waiting game and the longer it could extend the cold war, the better its chances of victory. That, it concludes, was the reason for the peace offensive and the U.S. ought continue to demand sincere action by Russia toward this end rather than mere words.
"Government by Protests" finds the objections to a concert series planned by German pianist
Walter Gieseking
The piece wonders whether the
country was so overtaken by hysteria and fear that it settled
questions now by unreasoned emotion rather than reason and law. If
Herr Gieseking had been a collaborator
It finds hypocrisy in the notion
that there was no active protest against bringing Nazi scientists
into the Defense Establishment for the purpose of developing rocket
technology
The piece finds that while Herr Gieseking should have remained in Europe, the fact that he was not needed by the country in its war against Communism made it convenient to pick on him while omitting to act in the other cited episodes. Policy, it concludes, ought be set by Congress and by law, rather than by disaffected groups and individuals. If such a policy banned all Nazis, that would be fine. But it ought be through official policy based on reasoned debate, not such ad hoc actions as in the Gieseking episode. The protesters had prevented not only people desirous of hearing a great pianist from doing so, but also those who would have deliberately stayed away from his concerts from exercising their rights.
"The Power to Act" finds that the Hoover Commission's recommendation that the President be given broad powers by Congress to reorganize the Government, with a possible savings of three billion dollars to the budget, be granted, as Congress would have the right to veto any act proposed by the President within 60 days.
Drew Pearson tells of troubles increasing in Latin America, of which the Foreign Minister of Cuba, Carlos Hevia, had recently sought to warn the President but failed to obtain an appointment to see him for the inauguration festivities. The President the previous week had said that the country had to get along with the Venezuelan dictators because of the oil needs of the Marshall Plan to make shipments to Europe. Most observers agreed that hasty recognition of the Peruvian military dictatorship had led to the Venezuelan revolt. But the President had nevertheless been upset by the remark of his friend, former President Gallegos of Venezuela, when he said that the the U.S. was responsible for the revolt in his country.
Democratic Governor Tom Mabry of New Mexico and New Mexico Senator Dennis Chavez, also a Democrat, did not get along, as the latter, believing Governor Mabry would be defeated in November, had staked everything on that outcome. Senator Chavez had been ill for some time and wanted his brother appointed by a Republican governor as his successor in the event of his death. Assuming that the GOP candidate would win, he let it be known that he was for the GOP candidate, on condition that his brother would be his successor. But now that Governor Mabry had won, he would not appoint the brother. In any event, Senator Chavez appeared not yet ready for the grave after all.
Among the few positive attributes of the 80th Congress had been a strong Senate Small Business Committee. A question was now being considered by the Democratic leadership in the new Congress whether to subsume it within the Banking & Currency Committee, in part because the Small Business Committee had stepped on too many big-business toes and in another part because it was to be chaired by Senator Jim Murray of Montana who, it was believed, would operate as a one-man committee utilizing his own son as counsel.
The exit of Chiang Kai-Shek in China reminded Mr. Pearson of a photograph which T. V. Soong, Chiang's brother-in-law, had taken with the President and Cabinet officers while in Washington, which enabled Chiang to have added prestige in China and feel emboldened in 1946 to refuse the request of then special Ambassador George Marshall that Chiang form a coalition cabinet. Mr. Pearson suggests the episode as indicative of psychological intricacies, those involving "face", as being central to Chinese diplomacy. He notes that the photo in question had been arranged by former braintruster under FDR Tommy Corcoran, through Secretary of Defense Forrestal, whom Mr. Corcoran was now active in promoting to retain his position.
Joseph Alsop, in Rome, finds that the "peace offensive" being mounted in Italy and France by Palmiro Togiatti and Marcel Cachin, as well as in the U.S. by Henry Wallace, emanated from the increasing decline of Communist appeal to the workers in the West and the increasingly grave conditions in the satellite countries of Eastern Europe.
In Italy the previous spring, the attempted assassination of Togliatti had given full temporary control of the party to two party activists, Secchia and Longo. Secchia tried to order an armed uprising but was frustrated by opposition within the Italian Politburo. The uprising took place prematurely in Genoa and was a failure. Secchia was rebuked by Moscow and Togliatti's gradualism approved. That meant that the Italian Communists had to carry on the guerrilla fight against the Marshall Plan through big and little political strikes, a protest of which was registered by the Communist-dominated Italian Confederation of Labor. That protest, however, was ignored because of Moscow's direct order.
In November, an independent union leader, Pastore, scored substantial success and threatened to become a serious factor among non-Communist workers, indicative of loss of strength by the Communists in the Western European labor movement, a development considered a year earlier unimaginable. The Communists could no longer produce strikes at will, as recently shown by the failure of a strike in Milan.
At present, observers agreed that a genuine peace offensive from Moscow would have obvious signs not yet present in these mere propaganda gestures of late. With American policy appearing to succeed, more of the same was the rule of the day.
Sumner Welles, former Undersecretary of State until August, 1943, and recovered from his December 25 heart attack and near death in freezing weather, writes also of the peace offensive in Italy and France, finding it only an attempt to soften the West's resolve, without any indication from Moscow of relenting from the Soviet goal of world revolution. He finds much the same motivations behind the peace offensive as Mr. Alsop and the piece above in the News column, including the desire to take advantage of the victory by the Chinese Communists.
Despite positive developments in the previous year, two things threatened the West, the first being any failure of the Congress to adopt the necessary rearmament program in the U.S., potentially despoiling the confidence of the European democracies in American commitment to aid in the resistance to Soviet aggression. The second would be the continuance of the British policy against Israel, formed around the policy of Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin. It had produced hatred among Jews, distrust by Arabs and loss of American cooperation, moreover, had weakened the U.N. and potentially opened the Middle East to Communist inroads.
The change of State Department heads would mean closer consultation between the State Department and the White House to determine foreign policy and that it no longer would be the brainchild of the armed services spokesmen on the National Security Council. Secretary Acheson had broad experience and vision, was capable of constructive initiatives and possessed the determination to see them implemented.
Mr. Welles finds the situation not to be conducive to either optimism or unrelieved pessimism. War was less likely than a year earlier. But there was also no cause to believe that an extended contest with the Soviets was no longer in the offing.
Security would not be achieved by reliance on the atom bomb. United and determined effort by the American people to work for a policy of containment of Soviet Communism and a more affirmative policy of democratic reconstruction abroad, as recommended by the President in his inaugural address, presented the best path to security. Such, however, would require extended patience.
You can say that again.
Marquis Childs discusses the trial of the top American Communists as an object of scrutiny by those in the West who believed it both a test of American strength and the strength of Communism in the West. The Canadian espionage case of 1946 had demonstrated how disaffected or idealistic citizens could be drawn into spying and disloyalty almost without realizing it. The Communists were protesting the American trial on the ground that it violated free association and speech under the First Amendment. The ACLU, with no taint of Communism, defended the Communists' right to set forth their beliefs without hindrance from the Government.
Mr. Childs makes a distinction between open speech advocating even revolution and that which transpires in secret and is conspiratorial, the former he finds protected by the Constitution and the latter not.
He uses the example of planning a robbery, and thereby goes adrift. The example involves a conspiracy to commit a crime. In the case of the Communists, the conspiracy would have to involve a conspiracy the object of which was criminal, i.e., to overthrow the Government by force or violence. Any criminal conspiracy must also have an affirmative, overt act toward its completion for it to be cognizable under the criminal law. The overt act may be slight, as in the case of the robbery, casing the object of the robbery, drawing up plans, purchasing tools, dynamite, etc. The same would be required of the Communist conspiracy for it to be provable as a criminal violation.
The case would ultimately turn on whether verbal advocacy of the overthrow of the Government by force and violence was sufficient to distinguish it from exercise of freedom of speech, discussion of ideas. The Supreme Court would ultimately decide in 1951 that it was. In answer to complaint that there was no overt act shown by the evidence, the majority stated: "There is lamentation in the dissents about the injustice of conviction in the absence of some overt act. Of course, there has been no general uprising against the Government, but the record is replete with acts to carry out the conspiracy alleged, acts such as always are held sufficient to consummate the crime where the statute requires an overt act." The Court then went on to say that there was no overt act required in any event where the Congress determined to codify the ancient common law to make conspiracy, itself, a crime—distinguished from the ordinary situation where conspiracy is charged by the prosecutor as a form of vicarious liability for the commission of the object of the conspiracy by the principals or where the object is inchoate but the agreement and initial overt act are complete. The notion was heavily criticized, and rightfully so, by Justices Hugo Black and William O. Douglas in their dissents. Rightfully so, that is, unless a police state, that atmosphere ultimately created in the Nixon years, is desirable.
And it was, incidentally, that general pervading atmosphere, of which Watergate was only the tip of the iceberg, as any good student of history, not some tv ditzel-head, blonde-come-lately parser of words or drunk Dr. Jekyl, knows inexorably led, with impeachment imminent and conviction foreordained, as foreshadowed by none other than Senators Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott, in a trial in the Senate by a supermajority of perhaps 90 votes or more, to the resignation of President Nixon, a quite bipartisan determination of its legal and practical necessity having preceded.
The Department of Justice, says Mr. Childs, was seeking that wiretap evidence be allowed in the trial of the Communists. Wiretapping was at present not illegal in certain instances, and more of it went on than the average citizen realized. While the evidence was not generally usable directly in court, it could be used in a limited manner, as approved by the Attorney General, to develop other evidence. Such authorization was usually given to about ten cases at any given time involving national security. The Attorney General had proposed that such wiretap evidence should then be subject to direct proffer in court.
A whole host of legal issues are raised, it should be noted, by Mr. Childs in this piece, starting with whether the Government has probable cause to obtain a warrant for the purpose of conducting a wiretap and whether evidence obtained is thus prohibited by the doctrine of the "fruit of the poisonous tree", that is evidence derived indirectly from the wiretap which might be, under other circumstances, gathered legally becoming no longer subject to search and seizure because the knowledge of that evidence and where and when to obtain it was derived from a wiretap conducted without probable cause and its taint not attenuated by legal, independent discovery otherwise of the evidence revealed by the wiretap.
A Quote of the Day: "Oak Ridge, Tenn., has won the National Fire Prevention Week contest for the second year, and we don't know a better place to prevent a fire." —Arkansas Gazette
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