The Charlotte News

Saturday, February 5, 1949

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that in China, a spokesman for Acting President Li Tsung-Jen stated that a peace mission composed of Shanghai elders to Communist-held Peiping would be delayed for two to three days from its scheduled departure the following day. The head of the mission said that he would first consult with Li before the mission proceeded to Peiping.

Meanwhile, the Government opened its provisional capital in Canton. Premier Sun-Fo and Foreign Minister Wu Te-Chen arrived in Canton from Shanghai. Li remained in Nanking, where he intended to stay as long as there was a chance for a negotiated peace.

In Budapest, the prosecutor of Josef Cardinal Mindszenty, anticipating his conviction for treason, demanded a "hard" sentence, meaning death by hanging. The court had said that no verdict would likely be rendered before Monday after an exhaustive proceeding involving five other co-defendants, lasting already three whole days. Defense counsel had made a weak and apologetic statement to open his case, agreeing that the defendants had harmed the country "immensely". He asked for leniency of the court.

In Warsaw, scores of former members of the home army were arrested by the Communist Government for allegedly plotting to assassinate Government officials. The authorities claimed to have found a time bomb attributed to the group, located near the meeting place of the Council of Ministers. The home army had fought the Nazis during the Warsaw insurrection of 1944.

In Athens, Greece, it was reported that the guerrilla leader Markos Vafiades had been relieved of his political leadership of the Greek "Free Government". It was believed by Greek Army officiers that Markos had been executed for failing to conquer Greece. Army officers thought the move to be the result of the conflict between the Cominform and the Tito Government in Yugoslavia. The Cominform had acquired complete control of the Greek Communist Party. The Communist central committee in Greece had also reportedly relieved Chrisa Hadjivasiliou from her political responsibilities as the only woman on the Greek Communist Politburo.

In Tehran, Iran, the leftist Tudeh Party was outlawed and the city placed under martial law after the attempted assassination of the Shah the previous night by a Tudeh Party member. The attempted assassin, a journalist, later died in a hospital from injuries inflicted by an angry crowd. He had fired five shots at the Shah as he entered Tehran University, with two striking his target without serious injury. The other three bullets went through the Shah's hat.

Iran was torn with dissension over its rich oil fields and the struggle between East and West for oil concessions. The leftist factions favored granting concessions to the Soviets. The anti-Russian faction had taken control of the country the previous November and had resisted Soviet demands for oil since during the war. The Anglo-Iranian oil company owned by the British was the only company presently taking oil from the country. There had been several border clashes between Russian and Iranian forces in recent months. The U.S. had two military missions in Iran for advisory purposes.

Senator William Knowland of California proposed to take directly to the Senate floor a resolution to change Senate rules to limit filibuster, without going through the Rules Committee. The bill would allow a vote of cloture of debate at any time by two-thirds of the Senate. Presently, the two-thirds cloture rule applied only when a bill was pending before the Senate, allowing Senators to filibuster as long as they wished on a motion to bring a bill to the floor. The Democrats voted unanimously to resist Senator Knowland's attempt to bring the matter directly to the floor, as they did not wish the Republicans to appear to be running the body. The proposed rule change would thus continue before the Rules Committee.

Senator Claude Pepper of Florida said at a Senate Labor Committee hearing that Senator Taft was wrong in predicting that the Senate would retain most of the Taft-Hartley Act.

Declining prices and a sharp rise in unemployment caused Government officials to reassure that the economic trend was not alarming. On the New York Stock Exchange, 61 stocks were selling at their lowest price in more than a year.

In New York, a youth sought to rob a man on the Williamsburg Bridge until the man displayed his only 30 cents and offered it to the youth. The youth declined and walked to the next person, who happened to be a deaf mute, displayed a gun. The deaf mute then grabbed the gun and produced a pencil and piece of paper on which he ordered the robber to tell him his name and produce his Social Security card, then accompany him to the police station. The youth gave a hard luck story involving illness of his mother, at which point the police arrived and hauled him away.

Also in New York, a meeting of 200 electrical experts was interrupted for ten minutes when the power went out.

In Japan, Mount Yake, a dormant volcano for 97 years, located 150 miles from Tokyo, erupted, scattering ash over a 100-mile area.

New snow and wind storms on the Pacific Coast moved into the plateau states this date, threatening to interfere with relief efforts in portions of the Western region beset by recent blizzards.

We figured out on Monday who "Mr. X" was this week, even if the newspaper did not help with a front page identification on Tuesday after some Scrooge won the $10 from the Christmas fund of poor little weeping children who will, in consequence, have none next year while Madame Scrooge basks in the sun of some tropical isle on her ill-gotten $10.

Rather than spoil the mystery, we shall simply deliver two critical, cropped and enlarged photos below as the decisive clue from which we discerned the identity, so that you may do the same. Then, as last week, you can backtrack and see how well our clues fit the person's name, if not referring, except obliquely, to his actual job or personage.

We offer one final regular clue.

And, while, owing to the newspaper's sole clue that he was a young man on the rise in politics, there may be temptation to identify him as Congressman Richard Nixon, we rule him out. He was simply the deliberate red herring bait. No good mystery, after all, is complete without a few red herrings.

Another contest begins on Monday. If you need the $10-$50 that badly, why not just wait until next Christmas and apply to the Empty Stocking Fund rather than deprive others of Christmas joy, leaving them destitute, alone, despised and sorrowful on Christmas morn, left to scrounge for little pieces of cornbread and sorghum to bring what little joy they might muster.

On the editorial page, "Low-Income Medical Insurance" supports the voluntary plan being put forward by the Medical Society of North Carolina for providing medical care to low income and indigent persons. As it originated from the medical profession, was low in cost and supplied adequate medical coverage, it held out great promise.

The pressure from the prospect of a Federal Government program had pushed the medical profession in the state to put forth the plan, which only needed the recommendation of the Society's executive board before being implemented.

The piece does not indicate that during the same prior week, the Society voted to assess each of its members $25 to afford a three million dollar fund to protest the "socialized medical" plan of the Truman Administration, prompting suspicions that the Society's medical coverage plan was not exactly that which it was trumped to be.

"One Less Licensing Board" tells of the State Supreme Court, in an opinion delivered by Justice Sam J. Ervin, having overturned a previous Supreme Court case of 1938 which had upheld as within the bounds of the State Constitution the exercise by the Legislature of police power to license photographers. The earlier Court had deferred to the Legislature to determine what was permissive use of police powers in regulating businesses. The current decision, State v. Ballance, had limited the power of licensing to those occupations requiring special knowledge or skill and which affected "intimately" the health, morals, safety or welfare of the people.

The piece finds that the ruling was a victory for the people of the state. Chester Davis of the Winston-Salem Journal had recently conducted a study of the State's licensing boards and found that the 21 boards outnumbered those in every other state, with more proposed for the coming year, including boards for watchmakers and dancing teachers.

Well, you don't want just anyone repairing your watch or teaching your child to dance.

"A Scholarship Committee" tells of the Kiwanis Club following the example of a special committee which acted as intermediary for finding needy, qualified students to receive scholarships to Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, proposing to do so in the Charlotte area while finding out which institutions had available scholarships.

A piece from the New York Times, titled "Training Young Drivers", tells of California having passed a law to make mandatory high school driver's education classes. Only 15 percent of the nation's high schools offered such classes. It hopes for an increase in that percentage as it deems it wise to teach driving in the formative years.

Drew Pearson tells of A. F. Whitney, the head of the Railway Brotherhood of Trainmen, having assured the President recently that the union would support his Fair Deal program as vigorously as it had supported the President during the campaign. Mr. Whitney imparted, however, that UMW was upset by the prospect of another injunction clause in the new legislation to substitute for Taft-Hartley. Other labor leaders, including Mr. Whitney and future Supreme Court Justice and U.N. Ambassador Arthur Goldberg, counsel for CIO, did not commit themselves on the issue. Mr. Whitney, however, endorsed the ban on jurisdictional strikes, favored by the Administration. In the end, UMW agreed also to support the entire legislative package of the President.

Dixiecrats, such as Congressman Gene Cox of Georgia, were trying to obtain patronage spoils as usual, with Mr. Cox seeking postmasterships to dispense in his district. The Democratic leadership had considered curtailing such patronage to Dixiecrats as a means of punishment for opposing the President during the campaign.

Will Rogers, Jr., was seeking to have the Navajo nation subject to an independent administrator, separate from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Mr. Rogers, son of the humorist, wanted the job as administrator.

The Senate doorman, with 18 years experience, was bawled out by the new sergeant-at-arms of the Senate for stepping out to shake hands with the President on Inauguration Day. The President had remembered the doorman from his decade in the Senate and did not mind the departure from strict protocol.

John J. McCloy, president of the World Bank, was being pushed as the replacement for Secretary of Defense Forrestal.

A Government study of the nation's highways had found them in disrepair, unable to meet the needs for peacetime, let alone for national defense in the event of an emergency, the purpose of the study.

It was believed that RNC chairman, Congressman Hugh Scott, who narrowly was re-elected to the post by the RNC, would be out of the job within six months.

Stewart Alsop tells of an episode a year earlier in which a Russian officer, chief of staff to Marshal Sokolovsky, the Russian military commander of the Soviet zone of Germany, approached an intelligence officer on the staff of General Lucius Clay and sought a meeting. At the meeting, the Russian imparted that Josef Stalin was not well, had suffered three attacks of an undescribed nature, desired a meeting with the President but could not travel. The Russian suggested a meeting in Stockholm. The message was relayed to Washington and the decision was made that if the Russians were serious they could convey the message through their Soviet Embassy in Washington. Nothing more came of the interchange.

It was interesting in light of the recent letter of Stalin to the President indicating his desire for a meeting, but again stating that his health did not permit lengthy travel, suggesting a meeting behind the iron curtain.

While the Stalin invitation could be written off as propaganda, the secret communication a year earlier could not, indicating that in fact the Russian Prime Minister was ailing. That raised the possibility of his imminent death and the unresolved question of the identity of his successor.

As to a meeting between the President and Stalin, there were at least two drawbacks for the Americans, one being that the Western nations might perceive that the U.S. was forming a deal with the Russians behind their backs. The other was that such a meeting would raise world expectations for peace and place pressure on the Americans to compromise with Russian demands.

Stalin would live until early 1953.

Marquis Childs, still in Springfield, Ill., again looks at new Governor Adlai Stevenson, finds that the job was costing the Governor $50,000 per year for expenses on a $12,000 salary. In the past, the difference had been made up by kickbacks which might not cost the taxpayers very much money and thus were not considered terribly wrong.

The Illinois budget was about 1.2 billion dollars for the year and yet the State paid its Governor such a paltry salary. The scenario was typical of most other states.

The Governor had managed to attract able personnel even at the inadequate salaries.

Governor Stevenson had spent during his campaign about five percent of the two million dollars available to the incumbent he had beaten, Governor Dwight Green. The promise of jobs in State Government was a substitute for money.

He finds Governor Stevenson to be good-natured, "direct and unaffected".

A letter writer comments on the present North Carolina vehicle inspection law and its amendment by the current Legislature to require only one annual inspection rather than two. He says that only defective drivers caused accidents and so vehicle inspection was superfluous. Some fortuities, such as a blowout, occurred without warning, and thus could not be prevented necessarily by inspection. He says that the inspection process had been attended by a degree of cynicism and that the Department of Motor Vehicles considered actual safety a secondary concern in making the inspections. He favors having the inspections done by licensed repairmen—which ultimately would occur in the state.

But if you walked in nonchalantly throwing back popcorn with one hand while wielding a chopper with the other, why they would give you your sticker for that old broken down heap, double-quick.

Yeah, it's got running boards. So what?

A Quote of the Day: "Army engineers announce they will begin a 'restudy' of a proposed dam for the Licking River near Falmouth. There probably never has been a blank project studied so blank much and for so blank long as the dam proposal at Falmouth." —Lexington (Ky.) Herald

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