The Charlotte News
Friday, January 28, 1949
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Acting President of China Li Tsung-Jen asked that the Communists name a place for peace negotiators to meet. Chaos, meanwhile, reportedly was spreading through China. Some Nationalist troops were reported in rebellion against the separate peace established at Peiping. A fugitive government was also reported to be possibly forming against Li, again probably under Chiang Kai-Shek, who had retired to his hometown.
More than 600 passengers and crewmen of two Chinese ships which collided a hundred miles from Shanghai, with one carrying 500 war refugees to Formosa, were believed to be lost at sea, after 35 survivors had been picked up by a passing ship.
Secretary of the Air Force Stuart Symington told the House Armed Services Committee that he supported the President's plan for a 48-group Air Force but that the strength ought be boosted to 70 combat groups when the nation could afford it. Air Force chief of staff General Hoyt Vandenberg told the Committee that the Air Force's original requested budget contained four alternative figures, 7.5 billion for a 70-group Air Force, and 4.5 to five billion for 48 groups, plus figures for 66 groups and 59 groups. He declined to reveal in public hearings what the actual difference would be in strength between the different sizes.
Southern Senators persisted against proposed rules changes to limit or ban filibuster. Senator Burnet Maybank of South Carolina argued that filibusters had killed more bad bills than good ones and proclaimed that unlimited debate was an inherent right in a democracy.
Secretary of Commerce Charles Sawyer told the Senate Banking Committee that it might be possible to allow unlimited exports of grain and coal later in the year. He recommended a 28-month extension of controls on exports, as during the war, for the sake of national security and in furtherance of the Marshall Plan.
James Webb, 42, originally of North Carolina, former director of the Office of the Budget since mid-1946, was sworn in as Undersecretary of State following Senate confirmation the previous day, succeeding Robert Lovett who resigned with Secretary of State Marshall earlier in the month. Mr. Webb would be responsible for the day-to-day operations of the Department and act as Secretary when Dean Acheson was out of the country.
Signals had been picked up from what was believed to be a missing B-29 which had disappeared the previous day in the area of the Canary Islands during a flight from Dakar to England. An oil slick was spotted near the area from which the signal originated.
In Kansas City, landlords meeting to discuss action against the extension of rent controls by the Congress received notice during the meeting that the rent on the meeting place was being increased $90, from $10 to $100 per night. The All Souls Unitarian Church rented out the facility. The note accompanying the increase made it plain that it was aimed at establishing an irony in the face of the landlords' planning to withdraw rental units from the market to avoid rent control.
In Boston, a subway fire beneath State Street near the waterfront in the heart of the city's financial district killed three and injured an undetermined number of persons. It was thought that it was caused by acetylene torches being used in elevator shafts by workmen.
In Sacramento, a woman voted "Miss California Zephyr" by the Western Pacific Railroad in 1947 was found beaten to death with a hammer and her husband was being detained for questioning.
In Raleigh, a bill was introduced in the State Senate to increase the gas tax by a penny to finance Governor Kerr Scott's rural road-building program, to cost 200 million dollars. The Senate also passed the bill to allow for only one, instead of the current two, annual inspections of motor vehicles.
Also in Raleigh, James R. Creech, Jr., the wealthy tobacconist and farmer from a wealthy family, convicted of murdering his wife the previous July, was executed in the gas chamber at Central Prison after failure of his appeal two days earlier to the Governor for commutation to a life sentence. Conveyed through his attorney, Senator J. Melville Broughton, the plea had contended as a mitigating factor that Mr. Creech had been drinking heavily before the murder. The executed man had attended UNC for three years and, according to prison psychologists, had well above average intelligence. It was the first execution of a white man in the state in more than a year. Meanwhile, eight black men had been executed.
In Chapel Hill, the 24th annual North Carolina Newspaper Institute convened and Governor Scott would preside this night over an awards ceremony for the state's newspapers and journalists. The Editor of The Tulsa Tribune, Jenkin Lloyd Jones, told the group that the monopoly newspapers were present to stay, triggered by higher production costs. He criticized liberals who favored union efforts to get more money for less work while also disfavoring the monopoly which those union efforts tended to foster. The secretary of the Association, Beatrice Cobb, said that the small newspaper was going the way of the small automobile manufacturer, unable to compete on costs through volume production.
Get yourself one of those little computer presses. They'll be coming, down the road a piece.
For those who determined not to play
Scrooge against the needy of next year's Christmas, we offer our
final clue in the "Mr. X" contest: He would be a participant in an advisory role
On the editorial page, "The 'Bold, New Plan'" tells of the President's articulation in his inaugural address of a new plan for lifting the standard of living in underdeveloped nations through sharing of technological advice to have spawned interest all over the world. No one yet knew precisely what the President meant, but Secretary of State Acheson had stated during the week that the program was intended for private capital and that the recipient nations would ultimately determine their worthiness to receive the assistance.
The piece thinks it a good idea as Communism thrived on poverty and Western trade would benefit by rising living standards in impoverished areas of the world.
"Judge Finds the Target" lauds Judge Charles Coggin for urging the Legislature either to abolish or amend the State magistrate system to provide more oversight. The Judge had just sentenced Magistrate J. S. Turner after his plea of nolo contendere to malfeasance in office for his scheme in collecting high court costs after a constable would routinely roust black citizens into court late at night on trumped-up gambling charges, charges over which the magistrate had no jurisdiction in the first instance.
The piece suggests that the Legislature require a bond of the magistrates and require closer supervision by county officials. The fee system, under which the magistrates earned their living by collecting court costs, ought also be abolished, it offers, and the magistrates provided a salary. The number of magistrates ought be limited and reduced. Nor was there any need for them to handle civil cases at all or criminal cases except in smaller communities.
"Who's a Crackpot?" tells of the death of Hubert William Shaw, 76, in Chicago, dubbed the "Cosmic Kid" as a soapbox orator in "Rughouse Square" and member of the Chicago Druidical Society. The piece wonders whether he was a crackpot, as many assumed, or perhaps, as his fellow members of the Druidical Society offered, dripping with wisdom, another Socrates, at whom the people of Athens had also laughed 2,500 years earlier.
A piece from the Raleigh News & Observer, titled "Wrong on This State", predicts that the Associated Press prediction was wrong that North Carolina would show strong support for ratification of the amendment to the Constitution to limit the President to two terms in office. Twenty-one states of the necessary 36 for ratification had thus far approved, all except two, Virginia and Mississippi, having Republican-controlled legislatures. The piece believes that North Carolina would stand in the corner of the other Democratic states and vote against the term limitation—which, it neglects to point out, was originally put forward to the 79th Congress by President Truman shortly after he became President.
Drew Pearson tells of twelve Senators being miffed at the State Department for asking them to relent on a resolution they had favored to back the U.N. resolution, supported officially by the U.S., regarding the Dutch aggression against Indonesia. The Senate resolution added that the U.S. would, if the Dutch failed to comply, withdraw all Marshall Plan aid from Holland. Once Acting Secretary of State Robert Lovett asked the Senators to withdraw the resolution, they became indignant. Senator Claude Pepper, among the group, agreed to withdraw his support, but the other eleven remained firm. Senators Dennis Chavez of New Mexico and Ed Johnson of Colorado said that they were not simply rubber stamps for the State Department and the White House in terms of foreign policy. Mr. Pearson lists the other nine Senators.
Meanwhile, the Dutch had told the British that they could not shoulder their burden of contribution to the Western European Union because of the expense of military operations in the past year in Indonesia. Mr. Pearson notes that the reason why the State Department was concerned about pressing the Dutch too far was the fear that they might pull out of the WEU and then wind up within the Soviet sphere.
Congressman Hugh Mitchell of Washington commended the President for approval of a Columbia River Authority to expand and coordinate hydro-electric power resources in the Pacific Northwest. The President demurred, saying that if proper planning had taken place, the power shortage being experienced would not have taken place. Washington Senator Warren Magnuson laid the shortage to the concentration of aluminum plants in Washington during the war, to which the President jokingly asked whether he wanted the Government to take them back after Senator Magnuson as Governor had championed their presence in Washington. The Senator and Congressman were trying to work out a power pooling arrangement with Canada in British Columbia.
Former President Hoover confessed to having predicted a week before the election that President Truman would win because Governor Dewey had been "talking down" to the people.
Congressman John Dingell of Michigan had not purchased new shoes in a decade and said that he wished he could say the same for his three children.
Marquis Childs, in Omaha, discusses the meeting of the Republican National Committee taking place in the city, finding that they were not quite sure what they were meant to do, having been split by the defeat in the late elections. The meeting was determining who would hold power in the party in the ensuing months. Congressman Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania was the current chairman, placed there by Governor Dewey. Few Republicans had heard of him before that point. Since Herbert Brownell, Governor Dewey's campaign manager, future Attorney General under President Eisenhower, directed the daily operations of the campaign, Mr. Scott's job was easy. Recently, Mr. Scott had named an executive committee comprised primarily of Dewey supporters and that had angered many of the party old-timers.
One such executive committee member was from California, and newspaper stories had circulated that he would seek to limit the power of Senator Taft, causing consternation to the Senator and his supporters, as well as others who felt strongly that the RNC should not make policy. Senator Arthur Vandenberg agreed on this point.
Senator Taft and his followers intended to be cautious in the 81st Congress, given what had happened to the Republican-controlled 80th Congress. He would oppose a tax increase while advocating public housing, Federal aid to education, and limited medical coverage. The strategy assumed that there would be adverse reaction to the bolder Truman program and that the Republicans could capitalize on it in 1950 to regain control of the Senate.
Another defeat in 1950 would make the chance in 1952 to capture the White House appear slim, and, Mr. Childs offers, a party out of power for twenty years was not just a lame duck but a "dead duck".
James Marlow tells of Secretary of State Acheson calling Communism reactionary rather than "radical", as so many did. The reasoning was premised on Communism having set back human freedom and the concept of equal rights, placing the State ahead of the individual. Only six million of Russia's 200 million people were allowed to belong to the Communist Party, the ruling entity in Russia. It had resulted in a secret police, jailing without trial, shooting or exile to Siberia for those deemed political enemies of the State, a result as bad as under the preceding czars.
Many in the U.S. had been sympathetic to the idealistic goals of Communism, but the actual results promised a return to the Dark Ages, and Mr. Childs wonders whether such sympathizers could continue to view a surrender of rights acceptable on the promise that one day they would be restored after the rulers made benevolent improvements to the general population.
It should be pointed out that the reactionary elements in the Southern United States were and still are of the same ilk as the Communist Party. That's right. Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms, and their loyal supporters, were, in effect, Communists.
A letter writer finds the impasse now between the West and Russia to be at a point where either agreement and compromise had to take place within the U.N. or a war would ensue to settle it. He suggests therefore that the U.S. undertake to strengthen the U.N. He wonders what the next inauguration would look like.
A letter writer thinks that North Carolinians paid enough taxes to pay for Governor Scott's program of rural road-building without adding a new penny gasoline tax.
A letter writer wonders why Americans were so gullible to try to pattern their lives after the British, being reminded of British carping against America since Charles Dickens after reading "Looking at Life" by Eric Brandeis, an article which had appeared in the newspaper on January 21. He concludes: "Who is King George, anyway? A wooden man alongside our President."
A letter writer from Delray Beach, Fla., thanks the newspaper for sending her a telegram which enabled her to locate Davidson College for her son.
Framed Edition
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