The Charlotte News
Friday, February 18, 1949
TWO EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Dr. Edwin Nourse, told a White House press conference that everything in the economy would be fine as long as people did not get jittery regarding healthy price declines. He said that the decline in farm prices and other prices was not deflation but rather "disinflation", an adjustment downward from the previous inflation, taking the pressure off prices. Deflation might signal a general price collapse. He predicted lower prices in the automobile and steel industries later in the year.
A representative of the National Association of Manufacturers told the Senate Labor Committee that the best way to avoid strikes causing national emergencies was to regulate industry-wide bargaining. He opposed the Administration measure to replace Taft-Hartley.
Senator Claude Pepper of Florida said that NAM was a greater enemy of democracy than labor would ever be and that the manufacturers had stayed home while the sons of workers died on the battlefield during the war. The NAM representative took exception, saying that three in his family had died during the war.
In Philadelphia, the transit strike continued, involving 3,800 cab drivers and 11,000 transportation workers.
Near Salta, Argentina, a U.S. C-47 transport plane had disappeared and all eight aboard were believed dead.
The former President of Spain, prior to the reign of Francisco Franco, Alcala Zamora, died in Buenos Aires in exile at age 71. He was considered the father of the Spanish republic.
In Washington, the treason trial continued of Mildred Gillars, accused of being "Axis Sally", broadcasting propaganda from Berlin to the Allies during the war, with the defense calling a witness who began shouting over defense objections that Ms. Gillars had threatened Americans in a German prison camp and did not claim to be a representative of the Red Cross. The defense had anticipated different testimony. Two other defense witnesses testified that the Gestapo always had an armed guard on duty at the radio station, suggestive of coercion of Ms. Gillars to conduct the broadcasts.
In White Plains, N.Y., a Canadian accused of using the society pages to commit jewelry robberies, arrived from Cleveland to face charges in Westchester County. The man had been sought for two years. The police said that in his wallet was a list of 22 top movie stars and their secret addresses, including those of Jack Benny, Bette Davis, Eddie Cantor, Edgar Bergen, Dorothy Lamour and Olivia de Havilland. At his apartment in Beverly Hills, California, police found $100,000 worth of jewelry and $20,000 worth of furs. Montreal authorities described him as one of the greatest burglars of all time and said that he was wanted in connection with thefts valued at $150,000. A woman to whom the alleged thief had given jewelry, leading to her arrest when she tried to pawn it, gave his identity to the police, leading to his arrest in Cleveland.
In Raleigh, the State House passed a measure to terminate the State vehicle inspection program.
In Charlotte, plans were announced for construction of a 225-unit modern, spacious apartment complex at a minimum cost of 2.5 million dollars, to be constructed off Selwyn Avenue on Wakefield Drive.
In Washington, the Great Dane mascot at Bolling Air Base grabbed the wrist of an out-of-step drillmaster and dragged him out of line. The sergeant had to go to the hospital for treatment of his wrist. The dog went to the vet for observation.
In Warren, O., police officers were wearing identification cards and carnations as part of a "know your policeman" day.
A temperance film, "It's the Brain That Counts", would be shown in Charlotte at the Statesville Avenue ARP Church at 7:30, should any of the brainless nitwits in town wish to attend.
We have discovered, through the great expenditure of time, money, and effort, a publicity photo
which strongly resembles the photo of "Miss X" which
appeared on Monday in the newspaper. But since this photo also has a
big "X" across it, we remain baffled, even if it reveals
a little more of the features of the New Jersey-born woman than did
the News version. Since the front page bore no further clues during the week, we include it below, in case you can figure
it out. The prize is up to $50. But remember, you will be taking that
money from the mouths of crying children next Christmas who otherwise
will get it from the Empty Stocking Fund of The News. So,
let's not be too clever
We have given up on identifying the
former well-known football player, "Mr. X" of last week.
We have simply run into a wall
On the editorial page, "A Better Road Program" finds the arguments for the 200-million dollar proposed rural road-building program of Governor Kerr Scott to be good, that the farmers needed good roads to carry their produce to market and that the resulting prosperity would translate throughout the economy of the state and help pay for the bond issue.
But there were good contrary arguments also, that the program would lead to deficit spending and consume the surplus in the budget built up during the war. The interest would consume money which could otherwise be devoted to road-building over a longer term than four years.
The editorial favors spreading the program over a period of ten to twelve years, thereby preserving the budget surplus, paving the most traveled rural roads in the short term, and also passing the one-cent gasoline tax to enable the State to make improvements to both rural roads and urban streets and highways.
"Clarifying Atlantic Pact" provides excerpts from The New York Times from the debate before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee anent the North Atlantic Pact. The quoted colloquy was between Senator Tom Connally of Texas, chairman of the Committee, and Senators Arthur Vandenburg of Michigan, Forrest Donnell of Missouri, and William Knowland of California. From it could be gleaned the idea that the Pact would likely include language which would permit the Congress, after State Department diplomatic consultation with the member nations, to consider using force in the event of attack on any member of the Pact, and perhaps formally issue a declaration of war, but without any prior commitment to same, either formally or by "moral" constraint. Such a statement, the piece concludes, ought provide security to Western Europe and serve notice on Russia that there could be no other Czechoslovakias, referring to the coup there in March, 1948.
That, of course, given Hungary in 1956, would not be the way it would play out after the Soviets would test successfully their first atomic bomb within the ensuing few months. No one was willing to face down the Russians over countries in Eastern Europe. The line would instead be drawn across the "Western Hemisphere", with emphasis on the Americas, as made manifest by the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, the most severe test of that strategy which Secretary of State John Foster Dulles had described during the 1950's as "brinksmanship", also used in the Quemoy-Matsu crisis regarding protection of Formosa from Red Chinese encroachment in 1958.
A piece from the Baltimore Evening Sun, titled "Southern Contrasts", urges the Southern states to listen to Governor Kerr Scott of North Carolina in his recent statement that the he wanted to see to it that blacks received fair opportunity in North Carolina. The piece says that such statements were not heard in Alabama or Georgia, where movements were still afoot to eliminate black voting in the primaries.
It urges that the best defense the South had against Federal civil rights intervention was to recognize the rights of black citizens as being equal to those of whites. Governor Scott appeared to understand the concept, while Georgia and Alabama lagged behind.
Drew Pearson tells of a Senate investigation in the offing regarding the Bikini Atoll tests of the atomic bomb in July, 1946, as Senators were fed up with the confidentiality being imposed by the military brass hats. They believed that the military was maintaining the silence in part to cover up failure to redesign or eliminate types of warships which had not survived the tests. The Senate Atomic Energy Committee had acquired the information that of 73 ships in the two tests, more than 61 were sunk or destroyed. Instead of effecting a remedy, the admirals were trying to build a 56,000-ton supercarrier at a cost of 150 million dollars, one which would be susceptible to an atomic bomb dropped within a half mile of it.
The Senate Committee had also
learned that decontamination
Scientists were urging the Committee to divulge the non-secret sections of the report of the Bikini Evaluation Board, a report suppressed by Secretary of Defense James Forrestal. The military, however, was pressing Congress with the idea that those wishing the information to be released were trying to give away secrets to the Russians, a claim which was patently false.
Senator Russell Long of Louisiana, son of the late Senator Huey Long, had lost a filibuster to his wife regarding his desire not to attend a reception for the President. After arguing vehemently against it, he made the mistake of pausing, at which point his wife was able to ask what time they were supposed to be there.
Marquis Childs tells of it being the final week of hearings on the labor bill before it would go to the Senate floor for debate. The resulting bill would likely not be at all pleasing to labor as it was going to be a compromise measure, a renewal of the Wagner Act with revisions, including the requirement that unions, as well as employers, bargain in good faith, along with elimination of secondary boycotts and jurisdictional strikes. Unions would also be required to file financial statements and their by-laws. Most of the debate centered around whether to renew the power of the Government to seek injunctions to stop strikes which threatened the nation's welfare and whether to continue the ban on the closed shop.
A labor law specialist, Joseph Kovner, had proposed that a special commission be appointed to study and make recommendations regarding the latter two controversial areas. Meanwhile, the Taft-Hartley Act would be repealed and the Wagner Act, with its revisions, passed in its stead.
Another possible compromise would entail a provision under which labor would provide 60 days notice to the Federal Conciliation Service before a strike, during which time there would be required mediation.
James Marlow discusses the formation of the North Atlantic Pact, posing the questions whether the final agreement would be worth anything without an ironclad commitment to fight in the case of attack on a member nation and how the U.S. could maintain its allies without such a promise. But the sticking point was that Congress would be hard put to commit a future Congress to a declaration of war under the treaty.
The President might commit U.S. troops before a formal declaration of war and then leave it to Congress to formalize it. But the question at the time was whether the Congress could transfer such emergency powers to the President. The country had never entered such an alliance before getting into a war.
The problem now was whether to make that commitment or leave the allies worried by a half-way measure. Senator Tom Connally, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had said that even a "moral obligation" to go to war would be objectionable, a statement which immediately produced adverse reaction in Britain and through Western Europe.
Following that flak, Secretary of State Acheson issued a clarification, saying that he believed there was no real controversy and that a satisfactory agreement could be reached among the member nations, that the final wording was the primary issue. But, says Mr. Marlow, that statement said little more than had Senator Connally, and it might mean that the final version of the treaty would enable the U.S. to act on an ad hoc basis, leaving the allies as insecure as they ever were.
A letter writer from Purvis, N.C., says that the town was not on the North Carolina road maps but that Governor Scott had assured him it would be in the next editions. He hopes that it would come to pass so that he would not have to drive to nearby towns, Lumberton, Pembroke or Rowland, to pick up his copy of The News.
He ascribes the high accident rates after the war to the fact that there were so many veterans on the roads who had not driven in several years. Also, the parts for the older cars were scarce, as were skilled mechanics to repair them.
The same letter writer addresses a second letter saying that his wife had gone after the mail while he was writing the first letter about an hour earlier. She brought back a new map of Robeson County and Purvis was on it for the first time during his residence, since 1919. He thanks Governor Scott for quick action and blesses him.
He may not like it though after awhile when all those tourists start flocking to Purvis for the scenery.
A letter writer responds to another letter regarding trucks, asks whether the reader knew what a truck tag license cost, supplies the answer: $280. And the tractor-trailer rig got only about five miles per gallon, with six to seven cents of tax per gallon. He says that by his observations, the truckers were much safer than automobile drivers. North Carolina had one of the lowest weight limits in the East and the poorest roads. He concludes that trucks carried their share of taxes.
A letter writer responds to a letter from a farmer's wife, wondering whether she and others on the farm would trade places with the crammed-in mill worker or the coal miner or steel worker or those of other such occupations. He concludes by suggesting that the farmer's wife realize that she was just one of the people, should stop believing that she was one of the "chosen few".
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.