The Charlotte News
Thursday, October 13, 1949
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the House Armed Services Committee was set to hear from Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson and the Air Force reply to the Navy the following week regarding the criticism of the B-36 bomber program. Generals Eisenhower and Omar Bradley would also testify, along with Secretary of the Air Force Stuart Symington. Chairman Carl Vinson of Georgia accused Secretary Johnson the previous day of making a "grandstand play" by economizing on the Navy. Representative Edward Hebert of the Committee said in New Orleans the previous day that Secretary Johnson was trying to scuttle the Navy and that his March appointment was a "political payoff", referring to Mr. Johnson having been a campaign fundraiser for the Democrats in 1948.
Admiral Chester Nimitz testified before the Committee this date, saying that battle plans had to assume that the country would be less ready for war than the nation's "probable opponent" at the outbreak.
In Canton, China, the Nationalist forces were reported to have abandoned the provisional capital and Communist entry was imminent. It was not clear whether the Nationalist troops fled under military pressure or were evacuating. The Nationalist Government had fled to Chungking, but Acting President Li Tsung-Jen had fled to Kweilin in Kwangsi Province, along with an army of 250,000 men, contravening directives of Chiang Kai-Shek with whom he was in dispute. Some 30,000 troops guarded Hong Kong but anticipated no trouble with the Communists. They were concerned, however, that fleeing Nationalists might pour over into Kowloon on the mainland adjacent to Hong Kong Island, requiring the fleeing troops to be disarmed.
In London, Prime Minister Clement Attlee rejected a call for a fall general parliamentary election, saying that the Labor Government would ride out the economic crisis regarding the dangerously low dollar reserve and the consequent devaluation of the pound. The normal election cycle would be for the following July. Left-wing Laborites had advised an early election, fearing that devaluation might cause results leading to unpopularity by the following summer. Conservatives and the press likewise had called for early elections.
Near Isleham, England, an American B-50 bomber with 12 live bombs aboard crashed into a wheat field and exploded, killing all 12 crew members. Witnesses said that the craft appeared to burst into flames before it hit the ground amid foggy conditions. It was on a practice mission at the time in Helgoland, the old Nazi submarine base used regularly for live bombing practice.
In White Sulphur Springs, W. Va., John L. Lewis announced that to settle the four-week old strike of the coal miners, the companies would need to agree to an increase of between 30 and 35 cents per ton as a contribution to the welfare fund. He said that the operators could absorb the cost through increased profits without passing it along in increased prices. He argued in favor of Government seizure of the mines and that they be run by the Government not by the operators on behalf of the Government, as in other such seizures.
In New York, the nine-month trial of the eleven top American Communists for violations of the Smith Act was nearing its end, as summations by the attorneys were taking place. The case would go to the jury for deliberations this date. Each defendant faced ten years in prison and a fine.
The Senate, the previous day, passed on voice vote the farm bill of Senator Clinton Anderson. The House this date refused to accept the Senate's bill, establishing a 75-90 percent flexible parity program for farm support prices, and instead elected to stand by its own bill, establishing parity at 90 percent, but agreed to work with Senate confreres in attempting to reconcile the bills. The Senate bill would maintain 90 percent parity on controlled crops through 1950.
In Chicago, a wooer of wealthy widows, who bragged of bilking them of millions, was freed from custody on bail after an unsuccessful attempt to revoke his bond.
In Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, a woman gave birth to quadruplets, all of whom were doing well.
In Tarboro, N.C., a striker at the Hart Cotton Mill was found guilty and given a 60-day suspended sentence and fined $25 for resisting arrest. Three police officers accused by him of assaulting him while he was in custody were not held to answer. The mill had reopened after a prolonged strike.
Plans were being made in Charlotte for the 175th anniversary celebration of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, with a meeting set for October 24 at 4:30 at City Hall. Don't miss it.
Charlotte Mayor Herbert Shaw said that he had invited the President to the May 20, 1950 celebration. Presidents William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson had attended previous celebrations of the event to commemorate the first declaration of independence from the Crown—of questionable authenticity though it was.
Earl Richert of the Scripps-Howard news service continues his look at taxes hidden in the cost of particular consumer items, this date focusing on cigarette taxes of about 11.5 cents per pack, of which 7 cents was Federal and an average of 3.5 cents, state, plus a penny in other taxes on the manufacturer. State taxes ranged from 8 cents per pack in Louisiana to a penny in West Virginia.
Cigarette consumption had increased greatly, with a rise of 6 percent during the first quarter of 1949 over the previous year's first quarter, and a four percent rise in 1948 over 1947. The Federal Government took in 1.2 billion dollars in tax revenue in 1948 from cigarettes. The Associated Tobacco Manufacturers were seeking a cut in the taxes by taxing a percentage of the retail price rather than a per pack flat tax, arguing that a consequent reduction in price would result in more consumption and even greater net revenue in taxes on economy brands of cigarettes, such as Marvels, Wings, and Dominoes.
In Hollywood, Shirley Temple, 21, had separated from actor and former Air Force sergeant John Agar and divorce papers were being prepared. They had been married four years earlier and had one infant daughter.
On the editorial page, "Confessions of a Court Jester" tells of Maj. General Harry Vaughan, the President's embattled military aide, having recently said at a dinner honoring him that he was beholding only to the President and Mrs. Vaughan, and that he had suggested what other people could do.
While the candor was refreshing, the General's job was considerably softer than that of most people. The honorifics heaped on him at the dinner describing him as a "great man" exceeded reality. His own insistence that he was only trying to get through Washington red tape in assisting people was revealing of the tenacity with which low-level bureaucrats operated, as he said he had more difficulty with them than the top persons in Government departments.
The piece thus finds new respect for such low-level bureaucrats.
"Dodging the Constitution" tells of Superior Court Judge William Bobbitt—to be named in 1954 by Governor William B. Umstead to the State Supreme Court and eventually by Governor Robert Scott in 1969 as Chief Justice of the Court—having ruled that the Mecklenburg County rural police fund was a general fund expenditure and thus subject to a State Constitutional limitation of 15 cents per $100 valuation of property. That amount was not enough to provide for the necessities of the rural police and so the outcome before the State Supreme Court would be important.
The voters the prior year had turned down an amendment to raise the limit to 25 cents.
"Doomed to Failure" finds Governor Kerr Scott's statement to local law enforcement the previous day urging enforcement of bootlegging laws and drunk driving laws to be perhaps beneficial but ultimately requiring public support in the counties before local law enforcement would be motivated to undertake such enforcement, as inevitably the bootlegging operations could also net prominent citizens who were patrons of it. It concludes that while the effort of the Governor was laudable, it would not work.
The law is the law. Walk tall and carry a big stick.
A piece from the Raleigh News & Observer, titled "Curious Reasoning", finds that the reasoning of the State Utilities Commission in delaying approval of a request by the railroads to reduce freight rates on petroleum to be strange. It had cited a similar action by the ICC in justification but did not provide the ICC reasoning. It merely said that reducing the rate would not necessarily benefit the public enough to warrant upsetting the balance between truck and rail freight. But there was nothing sacred about that balance, it finds, and lower rates to the public had to be beneficial.
Hanson W. Baldwin of the New York Times writes of the Navy's dispute regarding the B-36 and the atom bomb as the mainstay of American defense to the exclusion of the Navy. The principal issue, he finds, however, was whether the country's defense should be reliant on attacking enemy cities with an atomic bomb in the event of war.
Admiral Arthur W. Radford had expressed the Navy point of view, that the Air Force should have the primary role of strategic bombing but that the strategy should not be the mainstay of defense, that there was no short-cut to victory via an "atomic blitz", that such would, even if realizable as a means to victory, destroy any hope of a viable peace, that the concept was morally repugnant as well and could even lead to defeat with the Russians now in possession of the bomb. The bomb was usable only against cities, not precise military targets. So everyone would lose the peace.
The Air Force rebuttal had not yet been presented to the House Armed Services Committee, but some of the Navy's points appeared readily open to dispute, as its contention that the B-36 would have difficulty getting by the Russian jet fighters and anti-aircraft missiles even at 40,000 feet. With saturation bombing, some planes would get through any such net and with an atomic bomb aboard, it only took a small number of planes penetrating the defense curtain to create havoc.
But the Navy had built a strong case against bombing cities, a case which was now stronger after the Russian detonation of a bomb, triggering inevitable retaliation against American cities.
The Navy might also rely on the secret "Harmon Report", which was said to question the atomic blitz on cities as a viable military strategy.
Drew Pearson tells of contention between Senate Majority Leader Scott Lucas and Vice-President Barkley regarding the parity percentage in the farm program, whether to be the 75-90 percent sliding scale proposed by Senator Clinton Anderson or the fixed 90 percent program passed by the House and proposed by Senator Richard Russell, upheld in a tie vote by Vice-President Barkley, against the wishes of Senator Lucas favoring the Anderson plan. The latter regarded the Vice-President's actions as a personal embarrassment and torpedoing the farm program, especially the fact that the Vice-President had explained his vote, something which Senator Lucas regarded as outrageous. The Senate, as indicated on the front page, had passed the Anderson plan the previous day by voice vote.
Admiral Louis Denfeld was perhaps the unhappiest admiral in the Navy, as he was right in the middle of the Air Force-Navy squabble. He was siding with the other admirals but before the dispute, had expressed privately his belief that the money expended on the Navy could be better used for submarines and smaller aircraft carriers rather than the supercarrier favored by the other admirals. Some of the admirals had turned against him on that account, accused him of transferring supercarrier advocate Admiral Arthur W. Radford to the Pacific to get him out of the way as a competitor for Admiral Denfeld's job as chief of operations. Such rows were not usual in the Navy. A similar dispute had arisen, however, during the Hoover Administration, which he describes in some detail.
Recently, John Maragon had called the office of the Housing Expediter and pretended to be Drew Pearson complaining about five percenter James V. Hunt hanging about the office, claiming that he would write a story about it if it did not cease. But the director of information who received the call recognized the accented voice and realized that Mr. Maragon was seeking to eliminate his competition as a five percenter.
He notes that Mr. Maragon had told friends he would soon leave the country to embark on a big diamond deal.
Marquis Childs notes that the department store advertisements for lower prices on such things as woolens and china, competitive with British and European products, were indicative of the effect of devaluation of the pound and other currencies of Europe. The items in question were made in the U.S. but the prices had been reduced to compete with lower-priced foreign products. With lobbyists for these goods in Congress, the new competition for low prices could cause increased opposition to European aid on the notion that it was helping competition with the American market. The Russian atomic bomb had not eliminated that opposition.
He shifts momentarily to response to readers regarding a prior column in which he had given the cost of British royalty, causing an avalanche of responsive mail objecting to American subsidization of the throne. He corrects the misimpression by imparting that the Crown brought in more than it cost by nearly four million dollars. And American aid was providing for importation to England of food and raw materials essential to maintenance of British production, not support of the royal family.
There was some admiration in America for the pomp and circumstance of royalty in Britain, as evidenced by the number of American tourists who visited Buckingham Palace during the tourist season.
The old symbols gave a sense of continuity and vitality of traditional values. But self-interest in a highly competitive world was something else again, and American manufacturers who believed that the American taxpayer was subsidizing foreign competition would likely demand that it be stopped.
Robert C. Ruark tells of Senator Tom Connally of Texas wanting the dispute between the Navy and the Air Force and the hearings into it to end, as he believed it was only helping the enemy.
But Mr. Ruark thinks the airing of the differences good for American security and military unity, as opposed to having it covered up and leaked in dribbles via the gossip columns, that having it continue sub rosa was bad for all three branches of the military.
If the Navy had been deliberately undercut by the Pentagon to the compromise of the nation's security, then the public needed to know that. If the atom bomb and the B-36 were not necessarily the total defense curtain which they were being promoted to be, then that should be made public, regardless of private embarrassment in the military and Defense Department.
So he finds himself in complete disagreement with Senator Connally.
A pome appears from the Atlanta Journal, "in Which a Word Of Consolation Is Uttered In Behalf of the Bald:
"Men without hair
Are honest and fair."
But men with hair
Are fair and honest
Beyond compare—
Except for the Connist.
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.