The Charlotte News

Wednesday, March 2, 1949

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that an American B-50 medium-range bomber, "Lucky Lady II", had flown nonstop 23,108 miles around the world in 94 hours, being refueled in midair, thus establishing the capability of American bombers to go anywhere. The average speed of the Boeing craft was 239 miles per hour and it carried a crew of 14 men, led by Captain James Gallagher. All said they were tired but had taken turns getting some sleep during the flight.

Air Force Secretary Stuart Symington welcomed the crew upon return. General Curtis LeMay stated that the flight indicated that an American airplane could go anywhere requiring an atom bomb. "Volens et Potens" was inscribed on the side of the plane, which had taken off and landed at Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth, Texas.

In Frankfurt, the Russian repatriation mission, ordered by General Lucius Clay to leave the American zone of Germany by midnight the previous day, had remained, causing armed American military police to be ordered to surround the mission and supplies of food, water, gas and electricity terminated. The M.P.'s were given orders to arrest anyone attempting to enter or leave the building. Four officers and four soldiers and their families were present inside the mission. One couple who sought to leave and indicated their lack of intent to return, were taken into custody for questioning.

The Hoover Commission, in its ninth of fifteen scheduled reports to Congress, proposed major changes to the Veterans Administration, especially tightening of the VA education and insurance programs, where waste and poor management were found to abound. It proposed separating out the insurance program and making it into a Government corporation, that the VA set up its own list of certified schools to supplement state lists and refuse to fund tuition for G.I.'s not attending one of the approved schools, and that the housing loans program be brought under the administration of FHA.

Representative John Rankin of Mississippi, head of the House Veterans Committee, sought a vote from the full House on the veterans pension measure, to cost an estimated 109 million dollars over an undetermined period of years. House leaders and the Administration opposed the bill for its cost, but the House leadership indicated that it would not seek to block floor debate on the bill.

In Washington, Mildred Gillars, accused of treason for making propaganda broadcasts to the Allies from Berlin during the war, ended her testimony, in which she claimed that her target in the broadcasts had been Communism, to which, she said, she had made reference numerous times, and that in fact she was loyal to the United States. The prosecutor countered, however, that in 22 broadcasts she had used the word "communism" only one time.

In Grand Rapids, Mich., the man and woman who were reported the previous day to be involved in a deadly "lonely hearts club" scheme, were being charged with the murders of two women and the small child of one of the women after both the man and woman, who had posed as brother and sister, provided confessions, including admissions that they had sought to obtain "easy money" from lonely women. The "brother" had promised marriage to women in the scheme, bilking several victims out of thousands of dollars. The murder victims had been buried in two different cellars, the woman and her child in Byron Center, Mich., and the other woman in Ozone Park in Queens, N.Y. The couple told police that the first of the two women murdered, that in New York, had become the object of jealousy of the woman of the pair and she had struck her.

In Rock Island, Ill., one man was killed and three injured in a fire at the Harms Hotel. One man had left his artificial leg in his room and hobbled a hundred feet down a hallway and then down a fireman's ladder to safety.

In Columbia, S.C., a man, 25, impaled himself through the head with a Japanese souvenir sword, apparently belonging to his brother, a soldier, at whose home he committed the act.

In Raleigh, among other committee actions of the Legislature, the Senate Committee on Propositions & Grievances gave an unfavorable report on the statewide referendum on alcohol sales, thus condemning it to probable defeat.

In Charlotte, Jerry Greene, 14, returned home from New York after receiving a partial corneal transplant to restore his vision in one eye. A second surgery was scheduled for May to restore the second eye. His right cornea had collapsed and the left cornea had begun the process when the surgery was offered in New York. He was greeted by friends from his neighborhood, members of R.O.T., the Royal Order of Tubes, a society, the boys said, with a meaningless name. They presented him with several knives and a watch band, each of which he could now see for the first time in several weeks.

That sounds like a subversive and violent group of boys, bent on trouble with a capital "T". The Attorney General should be on alert. They may be plotting to overthrow the Government, accumulating sympathy for their cause.

"Mr. X" remains unknown, a baseball player or manager living in North Carolina. He could not be hied.

On the editorial page, "Gentlemen, Be Seated!" comments on Senator Tom Connally preventing the Senate from taking action to change Senate rules to allow, by two-thirds majority vote, cloture of filibuster on debate of a resolution or motion, whereas the current rule only allowed such cloture on debate of bills. His filibuster of the rule change would soon be joined by Senators Clyde Hoey of North Carolina and Walter George of Georgia.

Their long-range objective was to be able to have filibuster as a tool to block the President's civil rights program.

The piece finds that nothing justified use of the filibuster, exertion of the tyrannical will of the minority, to block the will of the majority in a democracy.

Incidentally, we would like to hear, for instance, how the ignorant schoolboy presently leading the Republican presidential field in 2016, with all of his blustery, bullying talk and no plan of action which would effectively pass a hostile Republican or Democratic Congress as things stand, would be able to get around the filibuster or just plain majority will in Congress. He and his idiotic supporters seem to believe that the President is a king or dictator who can come to office and wave a magic wand, issue edicts and proclamations and have them immediately become law. They apparently believe so readily the rightwing radio talk show propaganda being spewed against President Obama for the past seven years that they think that this Republican front-runner could come to office and readily supplant all policies of the Obama Administration with a series of ukases.

Here's a clue: it does not work that way in the United States and President Obama has never once violated any Constitutional provision in issuing executive orders, done by every President in our history. You are simply ignorant fools who do not pay attention enough in school or even to an average newspaper to understand the process of government in this country, listening to ignorant, whiz-kid high school graduates on the radio for your information and now to the ignorant patter of a superannuated schoolboy leading you, one who may know how to run a corporation, but has no clue about effecting coalitions and compromise to head the Government of the United States, not a business or capable of being so run, as President Herbert Hoover found out the hard way despite his doctorate in mine engineering. And that does not even confront the realities of getting along and effecting coalitions and compromise with foreign nations, without provoking wars, as brazen bullies are wont to do, not with impunity.

Suit yourselves and go down in flames in November. If this idiot tried a tenth of that which he proposes, he would be impeached in his first year in office, likely to be supported by both parties, as he has alienated not only Democrats but the majority of his own party, or at least the one to which he presently professes to belong.

We understand that Mussolini is his rhetorical role model. That is not surprising.

Having gone to Wharton Business School does not a genius make, and especially not outside the realm of business, where this "genius" has not even been so effective, save at one thing, salesmanship and the old technique of the bait-switch, his favorite ploy through time, as demonstrated most visibly by his fake "university" of five to ten years ago, now subject to multiple fraud suits, including one brought by the State of New York.

If anyone in the race for the presidency deserves a criminal indictment, it is this idiotic charlatan for bilking up to $35,000 each from thousands of gullible people for the privilege of standing next to a cardboard cutout of this idiot.

The idiots most fervently supporting this idiot seem to do so only for the delight in provoking response from those they deem "liberal", without realizing that to support democracy is to be liberal. Democracy entails respect for the viewpoints of everyone, including the minority, while not allowing the minority to effect its will to dictate policy, beyond enjoying the basic civil liberties accorded by the Constitution, especially to speak one's mind, thus impacting and altering, though not trumping, the majority will. To be a reactionary fool is your right under the Constitution. But it is not your right to impose those beliefs on the rest of us, especially when to do so creates danger.

Here is another clue: Your schoolboy bully has yet to achieve even 50 percent in any single caucus or primary among Republicans. What do you think that ought to tell you after nearly a third of the state contests have occurred?

A third clue: Read the polling data for the general election. The majority of the people are not so ignorant as this individual and his clueless supporters.

A fourth clue: See a psychiatrist.

"Confusion Over Objectives" finds controversial a "Foundation Plan", recommended by the majority of the State Education Commission, to have the State provide 85 percent of education funding and the localities the remainder, based on the ability of each locality to pay. Local school administrators were concerned over the dramatic change in funding responsibility, as well as the complexity of the Plan, and few would endorse it without alteration.

The N.C. Education Association wanted two simple and plain objectives: a $2,400 minimum teacher salary and smaller classrooms. Because their objectives could be readily understood, they would receive more support from the people in a subsequent bond measure than for the somewhat byzantine Foundation Plan. A plan for building of schools was also a concrete proposal which would receive widespread support.

The piece suggests that a unified approach would be the best method of improving education in the state, that support of the straightforward plans which were easy of comprehension would most likely garner approval from the electorate.

"The Puppets Are Jumping" finds that all over Europe, in Paris and Rome, the Communist puppets of the Politburo, who, just six weeks earlier, had been busy urging peace rather than revolutionary war, were now again trumpeting the notion that Russia would be allowed to invade their country's soil if they needed to do so to pursue an enemy. Leading British Communist Harry Pollit had joined Maurice Thorez of France and Palmiro Togliatti of Italy in so advocating, as had Otto Grotewohl in East Germany.

The piece posits that the change was in furtherance of the strategy enunciated by Josef Stalin in 1934, that the Communist Party would constantly shift its position in response to "historical turns", that the historical turns in question were the North Atlantic Pact and defection of Norway from strict neutrality to participation in the Pact.

It concludes that intimidation by Russia might be sufficient to frighten its neighbors but could not extend to nations in Western Europe, instead working to strengthen the resolve of those nations to resist Communism.

A piece from the High Point Enterprise, titled "A Stubborn Attitude", suggests to Governor Kerr Scott that he learn the art of compromise. His rural road building program had been cut in half by the Roads Committee of the State Senate, to 100 million dollars. He knew that the money would take at least two years to be spent, once approved by the voters, but was concerned that the voters might not then approve the other 100 million dollars, subsequently.

Either he was concerned that rural voters would not support the second part of the program once they saw the results of the first part or that the voters overall would not do so, thus appearing to lack confidence in the benefits to be derived from his own program.

It suggests that the Governor's all-or-nothing approach to the matter would only assure that nothing would get done during his four years in office.

Drew Pearson tells of friends of the President having recommended that he cancel his Key West vacation and go instead on a Western tour, to preserve perspective and maintain contact with the people as during the campaign. They were concerned that he was becoming too surrounded in Washington with the yes-men of his Administration. The President did not want to give up the vacation but also suggested a Western tour to take a swipe at Congress, though the majorities in both houses were Democratic.

With alterations of the proposed provisions to extend coverage to domestic workers and farm workers, limiting that coverage, the President's Social Security expansion bill, extending coverage to some twenty million people not presently covered, would sail through the House Ways & Means Committee, chaired by Robert Doughton of North Carolina. It would then pass the House and Senate, with alterations.

The Army, in cooperation with the Bureau of Land Management and the the Forest Service, had done a very good job of getting food to the snowbound civilians and cattle of the Western states during the recent storms. The BLM, though without funding or authority for the purpose, had performed rescue work when the Army Corps of Engineers had refused to budge for lack of authority and funding. After the work had been accomplished at their own risk, the BLM received authority and funding from the Congress.

Senator Ralph Flanders of Vermont had suggested that his colleagues do some "horse-shedding", a New England term for horse-trading, regarding the housing bill, which Democrats promptly began attempting, effecting a compromise acceptable to majorities of both parties. The only Senators not on board were real estate lobby Senators Harry Cain of Washington and John Bricker of Ohio, both Republicans, the latter threatening to introduce on the floor an anti-segregation provision regarding public housing. One Democrat said that Senator Bricker only wanted to insure, not that discrimination would be eliminated, but that no one would obtain homes.

Marquis Childs discusses the Army's report on the Japanese spy network for Russia, in operation prior to Pearl Harbor, indicating that the deputy chief of the Army Public Information Division, Col. George Eyster, had described its release as a "faux pas". Maj. General Charles Willoughby had been the chief author of the report, which he said was designed for internal use only by the military and never intended for public release. The report read in parts like a spy novel, replete with hearsay from convicted spies and editorialization critical of America's policy in China, suggesting that American policy-makers were duped.

Senator Lister Hill of Alabama and others in Congress had called for an investigation of the report and its contents, expanding into the occupation policy in Japan. Mr. Childs ventures that more should be known about General MacArthur's policy and his role in Japan. He was being treated as an emperor by the Japanese people. In the last election, the Japanese Communists had tripled their strength while the reactionaries obtained a majority and the moderate elements, considered the best hope for democracy, lost ground. General MacArthur, however, had hailed the election results as a victory for conservatism.

Russell Brines, in his book MacArthur's Japan, had pointed out that the General was shielded from unpleasant information by his aides. The impression was conveyed of a man living apart from conflicts, both in Japan and in the U.S. He had not been in the United States since 1937.

Mr. Childs suggests that the U.S. policy toward Korea should also be assessed. Many believed that the token force maintained there was a waste of manpower.

A propaganda campaign had begun to obtain more occupation troops for Japan. If such was necessary, then, Mr. Childs urges, the facts should be marshaled to support it. An investigation of what was going on in Japan, especially as it related to the fall of Nationalist China to the Communists, was, he asserts, long overdue.

DeWitt MacKenzie tells of the Labor Party in Britain to undergo a test in the June, 1950 elections, an assessment of its three and a half year experiment thus far in socialism. It had nationalized British Overseas Airways, the Bank of England, cable and wireless communications, the coal mines, railroads and inland water transport, and the electrical utilities. Nationalization of steel was pending before Parliament and nationalization of the chemical industry was also being discussed. Free medical care had been instituted, liked by the public, though controversial for its public expense. Thus, the elections would be a trial for socialism generally.

A test vote in normally Conservative South Hammersmith had the previous week taken place in a by-election. Labor had won the election there in mid-1945 and won it again, indicating the continuing strength of the party, even in an election in which Winston Churchill had personally campaigned for the Conservative candidates.

The outcome of the 1950 national election would depend largely on the state of things at that time regarding the status of Britain's post-war rehabilitation. The Government of Prime Minister Clement Attlee would likely be criticized for the Palestine policy and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Some Conservatives likely would complain that Britain had given up part of its empire by giving India its independence, though that was a predetermined outcome during the war, arranged and guaranteed by the Coalition Government of Prime Minister Churchill to gain India's cooperation during the fight.

On the positive side, Labor could cite its program of colonial development.

A letter writer responds to a letter of February 23, which had said that the injustice of Josef Cardinal Mindszenty having been convicted of treason in Hungary was nothing compared to the injustices of those Protestants suffering under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco in Spain, a regime supported by the Catholic Church. The previous writer had concluded that Cardinal Mindszenty thus was no martyr for a just cause.

This writer, a Catholic, defends the Pope and his support of Franco, while despising dictators generally. She claims that no Protestants were being persecuted in Spain.

A letter writer responds to a letter which had criticized this writer's previous two letters anent prohibition. The previous writer had suggested that this writer first get rid of the six liquor stores in Clover, S.C., this writer's hometown, before urging North Carolina to hold a statewide referendum on alcohol sales. This writer continues fervently to favor statewide referenda in both states—already essentially nixed by the North Carolina Legislature for the ensuing two years.

A letter writer says that a naturalized citizen had told her that everyone not making $12,000 per year would soon be on welfare. She sought to confute the claim but wishes to know further how to maintain the "American way of life".

First, you need to define what you mean by that phrase, as it may have a different meaning for each of the roughly 150 million Americans among whom you live in 1949. Then, you need to think long and hard about how we go about resolving those many differences into one, more or less, cohesive unit. You can then sit down and read, very, very slowly, with all of your cognitive faculties in play, the Constitution, and thereby find the answer. Pay special attention to those provisions, often neglected, relating to the powers of Congress, the President, and the Federal courts, relating those as you go to the various amendments, defining the limits of those powers, bearing in mind the Supremacy Clause.

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