The Charlotte News
Thursday, April 28, 1949
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President asserted at a press conference that he believed the Russians were in good faith in the negotiations over lifting the Berlin blockade. A spokesman for the State Department said that the blockade, extant since the previous June, might be lifted within the ensuing four days.
Statesmen of many nations expressed the hope that negotiations were taking place between East and West which might bring the cold war to an end.
Eddie Gilmore of the A.P. said that diplomats in Moscow believed that the three Western nations and Russia were making a start toward new relations and while no one was predicting settlement, they believed that settlement could ultimately result.
That's a relief. We had thought the cold war might go on another 40 years or so.
Chief U.S. delegate to the U.N. Warren Austin told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, assessing NATO, that the Soviets were losing the cold war through the growing opposition within the non-Communist world to Soviet territorial aggrandizement and that the Soviet leaders were beginning to realize the fact. He urged ratification of the North Atlantic treaty.
The President said that he would soon send to the Congress a detailed plan for 1.45 billion dollars in arms aid for the NATO members. He approved Secretary of State Acheson's comments to the Senate Armed Services Committee that a vote for the treaty would effectively endorse giving military aid to the member nations of Western Europe. Senator Taft said that he believed the statements by Secretary Acheson had "inseparably" linked the treaty to the arms program, that he was opposed to providing arms at present, and therefore could not say what his position would be on the treaty. Senator Edwin Johnson of Colorado, a Democrat, echoed the remarks of Senator Taft.
In Shanghai, the avenue of escape was closing for foreigners in the city as the last ships were preparing to sail and land routes were coming under Communist domination. The President said that all remaining 1,500 Americans could be removed from the city by Navy ships or airplanes. The British were not undertaking emergency evacuations, though they had warships in both the Yangtze and the Whangpoo.
Some 68 miles from Manila, Aurora Quezon, widow of the the first President of the Philippines, her daughter and son-in-law were killed in a machinegun ambuscade by bandits who killed a total of ten persons and wounded ten others. At the time, the party was moving through the mountains in two automobiles. Reports said that the bodies of the victims were looted of jewelry and valuables, suggesting that the motive of the attack was robbery and not political. The attacks brought sadness throughout the Philippines.
In Greece, Government forces suffered 186 casualties, including 25 killed, in capturing from guerrillas strategic heights near the Albanian border at Mt. Pyrgos.
The President declared at his press conference that Democratic votes on repeal of Taft-Hartley and fulfilling other Democratic platform pledges would be tests of party loyalty for purposes of dispensing patronage. He did not say whether the Dixiecrats would be eliminated from having patronage but said the matter would answer itself in due course. Representative John Rankin, a Dixiecrat from Mississippi, had his recommendation for appointment of a postmastership overlooked in favor of another.
The move prompted vigorous debate on the House floor among Southern Democrats upset with the President's announcement. Congressman Edward Hebert of Louisiana objected, saying the President had placed a patronage price tag on votes for the Administration's labor bill. Mr. Rankin called the President's move "contemptible". Majority Leader John McCormack stated in response that Dixiecrats were sitting in the chamber as Democrats by tolerance.
The President also said that he hoped that Curtis Calder would accept appointment as Secretary of the Army and that he was considering appointing Jonathan Daniels to be the new Secretary of the Navy. A report released the previous day that Mr. Calder would take over the job within 60 days was denied by both Mr. Calder and the President. The President also allayed any fears that the Marine Corps was about to be abolished or that the Navy's air arm would be absorbed by the Air Force.
In Concord, N.C., a black man and two white men were indicted by a grand jury on murder charges for the slaying of a woman during a drinking party on April 10. One of the men allegedly tried to rape the woman. The NAACP would represent the black defendant.
In New York, the hermit of Brooklyn who had lived a decade in a three-by-five foot cubicle inside a bedroom of his parents' house and had been discovered the previous day and taken to the hospital for mental and physical examination requested to see his lawyer before discussing his draft status with Federal authorities. The man's mother had placed him in the cubicle, to which he went voluntarily, apparently to avoid his being drafted in World War II. The 33-year old man was still eager to return to his hermitage, saying he had no use for the outside world. His mother, who had provided food for him and maintained his secret, even from his father, was in serious condition in the hospital, her illness having led to the discovery of the son's hiding place. The father said that the mother became distraught at the loss of another son 16 years earlier and then sought to protect her living son at all costs.
On the editorial page, "The Bickering Brass" finds that while Secretary of the Navy John L. Sullivan had the right to resign, he had a duty to follow orders of Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson to scrap the 65,000-ton supercarrier project without griping. With the resignations of Secretary of Defense Forrestal because of his health and that of Secretary of the Army Kenneth Royall because he was tired, there was even more reason for Secretary Sullivan to remain to avoid Russian gloating over these three key defense departures at the same time.
With a 15-billion dollar peacetime budget, the people had a right to expect efficient military spending. And they wanted the expenditures determined by mature management, not military brass bickering as petulant children.
"Separate Elections" finds relief that the report that city and state bond elections were to be held on the same day was untrue. Had it been true, the confusion would have likely caused the defeat of the local bond measures.
"School Solicitations" supports the effort of the Charlotte School Board to limit charitable solicitations among school children as they tended to compete by classes, causing problems for parents who had already contributed to the charities and interference with teaching.
"We're Still Confused" tells of Governor Kerr Scott having asked Standard Oil of New Jersey why it had raised gas prices in the state nearly half a cent. The president of Esso replied, saying that decreases in almost all crude oil prices except gasoline had taken place in the previous five months, necessitating the increase in gasoline costs so that the company could turn a profit.
But then the A.P. reported that Standard Oil had record 1948 income, an increase of 40 percent over 1947, because of greater volume of products sold and higher market prices.
The Governor was upset because the State Senate had balked at approving his proposed half-cent rise in the gasoline tax to help finance the rural roads program, making it contingent on the passage of the 200-million dollar bond measure. It was unlikely that Standard Oil had satisfactorily answered his query.
Drew Pearson tells of the hearings in executive session before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the NATO accord. Senator Vandenberg set the pace but each member of the Committee asked numerous questions of Secretary of State Acheson, Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson, and ERP Ambassador Averell Harriman.
Despite the attempt to maintain secrecy in the hearings, someone had leaked to the press the amount of the proposed military aid to the Western European members, 1.13 billion dollars.
Senator Vandenberg wanted to know whether the pact was another old-fashioned military alliance or a genuine collective security agreement. He wanted to know whether, under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, requiring actions taken by regional alliances for self-defense to be reported immediately to the Security Council, it would be necessary to report NATO's secret plans to the Council, of which Russia was a member. He concluded that the only measures which had to be reported were actions undertaken jointly after an armed attack had taken place.
Senator Elbert Thomas of Utah was against the entire armament program if it meant giving Western Europe the best American bombs and techniques. He asserted that since the basis for the pact was to promote peace, it was counter-productive to arm Western Europe, that peace, not war, ought be taught.
Another question raised was whether the U.S. ought furnish its own arms or provide aid for Europe's own manufacture of arms. But against the latter notion was the fact that such plants would be easy prey to the Russians and might stimulate an attack.
Many Senators were upset that the President was pushing for arms before the treaty was ratified. Secretary Acheson countered that arming was the only way to implement the pact.
The Joint Chiefs had decided to equip Western Europe with the M-1 Garand rifle because there were six million in surplus and the Army planned to produce a new, improved model for American troops.
State Department policy planner George Kennan was about to be promoted to counselor to replace Chip Bohlen who would go to Paris.
Marquis Childs tells of the unfairness of the Senate Armed Services Committee, after holding hearings on the nomination of Mon Wallgren to be chairman of the National Security Resources Board, by having pigeonholed the nomination, refusing to allow it to come to the Senate floor for a vote. Six Republicans and Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia had been responsible for the obstruction.
The President believed that the action was unconstitutional, that it was the duty of the Senate to act on a nomination, either to confirm or not. And he stressed that the Constitution's advice and consent clause referred to the whole Senate, not to a committee.
For years there had been assertions of encroachment by the executive branch on the legislative branch. Now, it appeared that the Congress was bent on sabotaging the nomination powers of the President.
The Board in question had been without a chairman for nearly four months and most of the top Board members had resigned in the interim without being replaced. Presidential adviser John Steelman was the acting chairman but had very little time to devote to the Board. The staff was still busy drawing up contingency plans for mobilization of the country in the event of war, but without real leadership, their efforts were rendered primarily academic.
The President believed that the obstructionists had overemphasized the importance of the job so that Mr. Wallgren would seem not to have the requisite experience. Mr. Childs views it as either a vitally important job, the integration of business, Government and the nation's resources for mobilization, or a $14,000 per year sinecure. If it was the former, he concludes, then Mr. Wallgren was either not qualified or his qualifications had remained obscure. If the latter, then the job ought be abolished. But whatever the case, the Senate was evading its duty in failing to pass on the nomination.
A position on the Supreme Court of the United States, we know, is without doubt, a vital position. Thus, everything stated in this piece can be applied with a hundred times the force to the current situation in 2016 whereby the Republican majority of the Senate, led by Mitch McConnell, have refused to hold hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Charles Grassley, on the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland, unquestionably well qualified for the position. It is the first time in the history of the country that any Senate has ever pulled such a stunt and refused even to hold hearings on a Supreme Court nominee, whether in an election year or not. Everything the Republicans are putting forth in justification amounts to the biggest lie ever told in American history, even including those told during Watergate and Teapot Dome. It is cheap and tawdry and brands every Republican supporting the maneuver as being unworthy of the respect of the American people, let alone their Senate seats.
We are keeping a list and checking it twice, to see who has been naughty and who has been nice. And come election day, boys and girls, those who have been naughty should find themselves having to move out of their Senate offices.
It is up to you whether you want a Senate majority which takes the Constitution and throws it in the trash for the sake of their own raw political ambitions, to try to retain a majority of the Supreme Court, turning that once venerable institution into just another partisan body, despite the popular vote in five of the last six Presidential elections having been in favor of the Democratic candidate. Are those Senators worthy of anyone's respect except those who would view the Constitution with equal disdain and read out those sections with which they disagree?—those who we once in this country's history called "Tories", the polite term for them.
Stewart Alsop, in Tokyo, tells of Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida, an amiable man who proclaimed himself a liberal when most in Japan disagreed. He was a friend to the old Zaibatsu system of interlocking family industrial trusts. Though this system was dead, he wanted to revive it or something very much like it.
Sanzo Nozaka, the most powerful of the Japanese Communists, claimed to represent the new Japan. He was deemed to be Japan's cleverest politician. His party in the previous election tripled its vote and increase eight-fold its representation but still remained a small minority in the Diet. Mr. Nozaka, however, was confident of the future.
Former Prime Minister Tetsu Katayama was not so confident as the leader of the non-Communist Social Democrats. His party was severely diminished in power by the recent elections.
The previous summer, the military occupation government had outlawed strikes and collective bargaining in the railroad, communications, tobacco and other nationalized industries. The American labor union men at government headquarters denounced the move, as did the Social Democrats. But the Social Democrats were required by the military government to sponsor the measure, causing them great harm at the polls. The Army officers who were running Japan nevertheless seemed unconcerned by the withering away of Mr. Katayama in favor of Mr. Yoshida and Mr. Nozaka.
In fact, concludes Mr. Alsop, the failure of any moderating force in Japan between the right and the Communist left could outweigh the positive accomplishments of American occupation of the country.
A letter writer praises Charlotte but also says that certain improvements needed to be made, cleaning up Sugaw Creek and placing of two railroad underpasses. He advises against a new railway station, however, as passenger service on the trains was quickly becoming a thing of the past.
The editors ask whether anyone wanted to respond.
A letter writer accuses tobacco chewers of being the primary offenders spitting on the sidewalks and in other public places in the state. He thinks when spotted, such an offender ought be required to utilize a mop to wipe up his spittle. He had once been a tobacco chewer but after an unpleasant episode, which he recounts in expectorant detail, he gave it up.
A letter from the secretary of the Little Rock A.M.E. Zion Church thanks police officers for maintaining order around the church during their night service.
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