The Charlotte News
Wednesday, March 16, 1949
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Senate Majority Leader Scott Lucas stated that he was preparing to demand a roll call vote of individual Senators regarding every issue on the effort to change Senate rules to make it easier to effect cloture of debate during filibusters. He stated that he believed Republicans, 23 of whom had sided with 23 Southern Democrats to defeat the earlier ruling of Vice-President Alben Barkley that the two-thirds majority rule would be applicable to effect cloture on motions, had "sold out" in agreeing on a compromise whereby the two-thirds rule would apply across the board except regarding changes to rules.
Before the Senate could vote on that proposal, several other proposals first would be considered, including one requiring only a simple majority vote to effect cloture.
Meanwhile, in the wake of the agreed compromise between 30 Southern Democrats and 22 Republicans, the filibuster had ended the previous night at 11:00 p.m., after 16 days. Senator Olin Johnston of South Carolina had been the last of fourteen Southern Senators engaging in the filibuster. At that point, the motion to take up the resolution on extension of the two-thirds cloture rule to motions and resolutions was passed, opening the way for consideration of the rule change, itself, requiring a simple majority to pass. But the Southern-GOP compromise and all other pending substitute proposals would first be the subject of a vote by the membership. The compromise, apparently supported by 52 votes, was expected therefore to pass.
Senator Lucas, who originally had
supported the same rule which was the basis for the compromise, now
complained bitterly that it would be nearly impossible ever to obtain
64 votes, two-thirds of the membership, to effect cloture
DNC chairman Senator Howard McGrath of Rhode Island had an angry exchange with NAACP executive secretary Walter White regarding Mr. White showing him a press clipping in which it was claimed that the Democrats were surrendering on the issue of civil rights. Senator McGrath, who believed Mr. White ought to know better, became angry, as Mr. White had previously been publicly accusing the Democratic leadership of ducking on the civil rights issue and not being sincere on wanting the Senate rule change.
House Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Vinson of Georgia announced that he had started a formal inquiry into leaks of secret military information, following publication in Fortune of photographs and maps of atomic installations and other reports of how Russia could be bombed, which he believed informed the potential enemy of valuable military secrets.
In Washington, former Senator Thomas
P. Gore, who had served three non-consecutive terms from Oklahoma,
the last ending in 1937, died at age 78. Senator Gore was blind
throughout his time in the Senate. He was the maternal grandfather of author Gore Vidal
An anthracite coal operator claimed that the two-week walkout by the UMW in protest of the Senate confirmation of Dr. James Boyd as director of the Bureau of Mines was a contract violation. John L. Lewis denied the claim and said he would not end the walkout early.
In Kalamazoo, Mich., a 13-year old boy who had married a sixteen-year old girl ten months earlier was searching for a job but finding it difficult. They had a child on February 23. He appealed to a local radio station for help in locating employment. Before the marriage, he had dropped out of the sixth grade and gone to work for a construction company and then a pickle company.
You may have packaged a larger peck of pickles than you realize, young fellow.
In Raleigh, the State Senate agreed with the Senate Education Committee and voted against a minority report which had favored the Foundation Plan for education while making it requisite that a two-thirds majority would have to vote to call up the matter again for consideration. The Plan had proposed to make the State responsible for 85 percent of education costs and the counties and municipalities the remainder, to the extent of their ability to pay.
In Charlotte, Victor Shaw, a prominent businessman and civic leader, announced his candidacy for mayor in the spring municipal election.
The News reveals that "Miss X" for the week had been identified the previous night as the young actress Wanda Hendrix, whose better known motion pictures are listed. You have already seen two excerpts yesterday.
Incorrect guesses for the last of the contests included Ella Raines, Tallulah Bankhead, Rita Hayworth, Dorothy Shay, Greta Garbo, and Ingrid Bergman, leading us to intuit that the second clue was that the woman was an actress.
The winner was a sixteen-year old girl who was planning to use the $20 she won to help finance a trip to Washington with her school class.
Sure, live it up. Everyone else is going to do so, at the expense of the little children next Christmas who, because of the smart-aleck Scrooges of the community, will have none, the Empty Stocking Fund having netted nary a cent from the contest while seven people got wealthy, some going to Florida on their winnings, some to the South of France, others to Washington. It must be nice.
Well, at least send a couple of the poor children a postcard wishing them a Merry Christmas and that you would like for them to see all the wonderful sights which, being too poor, they could not.
We feel short-changed, incidentally,
in never having been informed during the third week of the contest
just who the well-known former football player was. Perhaps, the
answer will become apparent
A South Carolina legislator in Columbia told of his native Aiken County having the best corn liquor "this side of Hell Hole Swamp", as he invited his fellow legislators to a day of horse racing in Aiken on March 23. He said that the liquor was so good that hornets would follow the July Fourth imbiber until Thanksgiving.
You would not want that.
In Des Moines, Ia., the war dog Nero, who had been a hero but was denied veterans' benefits, had died at age six from an infection. The German shepherd had originally been with the Wehrmacht but was captured by the Americans in Italy and retrained in the last days of the war not to be so hot.
Likely story. Once a kraut dog, always a crypto-kraut dog.
On the editorial page, "Roll Out the Barrel" finds the 50 million dollar bond issue on school construction to be worthy in the abstract but in its present form, full of pork-barrel politics.
Its ostensible goals were to enable poor counties unable to afford school building programs to obtain State aid and provide the State Board of Education a degree of control over design and location of school buildings.
But the presently proposed program would accomplish neither goal as it would simply grant $500,000 to each of the hundred counties in the state to spend for school construction as they chose. Many of the smaller counties did not need nearly so much to bring their school infrastructure into parity with the most modern examples to be found in the state, while larger counties, such as Mecklenburg, needed more than $16.25 per child, as it would receive under this plan. Sparsely populated Camden County, for instance, would get $483.09 per pupil.
It therefore favors a different approach.
"Forsyth Ponders ABC System" tells of a Committee of 100 in Winston-Salem recommending that Forsyth County adopt ABC-controlled sale of liquor. It found that bootlegging and concomitant illegal activity would thus be considerably reduced under the system, based on the experience of other counties in the state which had adopted it.
Santford Martin, Editor of the Winston-Salem Journal, opposed the system, while Pete Ivey, Editor of the Twin City Sentinel, the afternoon newspaper associated with the Journal, favored it. Each had issued competing editorials in recent months, explaining well both sides of the issue. The piece suggests that therefore if an election were to be held on the matter, the electorate would be well informed.
"Register …. Then Vote" commends the Board of Elections for undertaking a citywide voter registration drive beginning April 2, making it easy for residents to register for the coming municipal election.
A piece from the
New York Times,
titled "A Carolina Tree Grows
It points out that North Carolina had abandoned the poll tax in 1920 and was one of the first Southern states to allow black employment by municipalities, with the hiring of black policemen.
Dr. Howard Odum and Dr. Rupert Vance
of the University of North Carolina had focused Southern and national
attention on regionalism. Jonathan Daniels
It concludes that Governor Scott's "Go Forward" program, to improve schools, rural roads, rural electrification and encourage diversified agriculture, was worth watching.
A short note says: "We note the Mecklenburg legislators have introduced a bill to prohibit fortune tellers, palm readers, and clairvoyance. They must have meant clairvoyants. If there's anything we need in these parlous times, it's more clairvoyance."
Drew Pearson tells of the North Atlantic Pact set to be released later during the week, to be the most important international agreement since the Monroe Doctrine. It would extend geographically from Mexico to French North Africa and provide that if any nation committed aggression against a member, NATO would treat it as an attack on all members, provided that each nation would retain the right individually to decide whether to use force as each case arose. Each member would report such an act of aggression to the U.N. Security Council. It defined an attack as being inclusive of territorial incursion.
He provides a summary of each of the eleven articles of the treaty.
Behind the scenes compromise, resolving bickering between Northern and Southern Democrats, had led to the House Labor Committee reporting favorably the minimum wage increase to 75 cents.
Marquis Childs suggests a conference of farm and labor leaders, cooperatives, and independent groups to discuss American foreign policy, especially as it related to Germany. There was concern regarding the apparent intention of the Government to back a policy of returning Ruhr industry to the Germans, with the potential for re-establishment of the old cartels which had led to rearmament of Germany between the wars. Such a conference, preferably headed and attended by Secretary of State Acheson, would mobilize public opinion behind a democratic policy for Germany, one which would be consonant with the desires of the German people, not just the managers at the top.
With Robert Murphy now heading the division of the State Department overseeing Germany and Austria, having been at the right hand of General Lucius Clay in Germany for four years, the military had more confidence in the State Department taking over civilian control of the administration of the American zone of Germany, a goal of the Department for at least two years.
DeWitt MacKenzie tells of the immediate future of Nationalist China resting on General Ho Ying-Chin, chosen by Acting President Li Tsung-Jen to negotiate a peace with the Chinese Communists. Ho, with a good background in diplomacy and matters of state as well as being considered Chiang Kai-Shek's right-hand man, would try to attempt to obtain terms from the victors, who thus far demanded unconditional surrender.
Since latter January, the Communists had been on the north bank of the Yangtze awaiting either surrender or signs of a mounting defense. The Nationalist Army had little chance of holding back the Communists. Since General Ho had the Army's respect, he could potentially unite it in acceptance of terms of peace. There was belief that the Communists might accept a coalition government for Southern China, in the expectation that eventually, an outright Communist government would emerge from it.
Ho had earlier told Mr. MacKenzie that he believed in battling ideas with ideas and not with bullets. The peace negotiations, if they ever came to pass, thus, he posits, might be so colored.
Edward Shanke, in the third of his five-part series on Britain's socialized medical and dental care plan inaugurated the previous July, tells of it having been overwhelmed with more demand than anticipated, tens of millions of dollars more in medical and dental treatment, which included free eyeglasses. The Health Ministry contended that the waiting lists for care were presently inflated because of the initial pent-up demand, now released by the prospect of free treatment, and that it would level off in time.
Some doctors reported that treatment was being sought on an unprecedented basis for trivial ills, while others said patients were very considerate of their time. The Ministry of Health agreed that some frivolous use of the system had occurred, but they believed that no one had the right to categorize the complaints as trivial.
Many doctors complained of the
paperwork associated with the system. But the Ministry had pointed
out the salubrious result that now patients were being treated on the
basis of what they needed
To resolve the problem of disparate distribution of doctors, the Medical Practices Committee directed young doctors who joined the National Health program to designated geographical areas of practice. Private doctors could practice in whatever area they chose. A special fund was also provided to induce doctors to go to certain areas where there was more need for medical care.
The
Better English answers is what
follows: "very friendliest"; physicue, like oblicue and mysticue, or applicue; islet; pure angry
Framed Edition
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