The Charlotte News
Saturday, April 30, 1949
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that in China, Communist troops reached to within 23 miles of Hangchow, the Nationalist defense anchor for Shanghai. The Communists demanded that the U.S., France, and Britain remove their troops, warships, and military aircraft from China. Meanwhile, the exodus of foreigners from Shanghai by airplane continued apace.
In New York, there were indications that progress was being made in the closed meetings between the U.S. State Department representative and the Soviet representative to resolve the Berlin blockade crisis after a reported successful meeting the previous day. One unidentified Western source said that the Western powers had found no "jokers" in the deal suggested by Russia, lifting simultaneously the Soviet blockade and Western counter-blockade while scheduling a meeting of the Big Four Council of Foreign Ministers to discuss Germany, to take place after removal of the blockade.
While traditional May Day propaganda came out of Soviet organs, Yugoslavia issued a proclamation attacking not only the imperialist West but also the Soviet Union for its economic and political boycott of Yugoslavia. Anti-Communists in Western Europe, in France, Denmark, and Italy, also were holding mass rallies to counter the Communist propaganda in those countries.
House Democrats were meeting in an effort to try to save the Administration's labor bill from being supplanted by the alternative measure which would preserve most of Taft-Hartley. The Administration favored repeal of Taft-Hartley and replacement with an altered version of the 1935 Wagner Act, retaining the Taft-Hartley bans on jurisdictional strikes and secondary boycotts. It appeared, however, that the Administration might compromise to try to obtain part of its package.
In Edinburgh, Scotland, a million gallons of Scotch whiskey was consumed in a fire at a warehouse. There were some pretty drunk hoses afterwards.
In Statesville, N.C., a gasoline salesman who prevented Harmony from being consumed by fire from an explosion the previous May 13 would receive from the Carnegie hero fund commission an award. He had been filling underground tanks with his truck when a man lit a cigarette nearby and set fumes from the gasoline on fire. He removed the hose from the tank and drove the burning truck away from town, with flames shooting 50 feet into the air, while he stood with one foot on the outside running board and the other on the accelerator. After clearing town, he had cleared the truck before it exploded. One motorist encountering the conflagration rolling down the road later imparted to the driver that it appeared as he would imagine hell approaching.
In Newton, N.C., five children escaped without injury from a fire at the Catawba Theater which caused $100,000 worth of damage.
A nine-year old boy won the Mother Contest, sponsored by The News, with his letter chosen from more than a thousand entries, telling why each child loved their mother. When the boy heard the news that he had won, he called his father in Asheboro and told him that he loved him, too. His mother, as well as the mothers of the second and third place winners, would receive orchids from the local florists association on May 8, Mother's Day. The first place winner also received $25.
The first place letter is reprinted. The author loved his mother because she was so sweet and bought him things he needed, meant "no" when she said it and spanked him when he was bad so that he would be good some more. They shared secrets and sawed and hammered together sometimes. Most of all, he liked talking to her alone and the way she winked at him.
The second place letter writer said that he loved his mother because, among other things, she allowed him to lick the pan.
The third place letter writer,
succinct, said that she loved her mother because she took care of her
and her black cat
It's good that there are no rabbits
On page 3-B, a story tells of the
more than 40 softball teams poised to open the 1949 Charlotte season
the following Monday, replete with their weekly schedules. If you are
a softball fan, you will be in for a treat
On the editorial page, "Blueprint for a Labor Bill" seeks to elucidate for readers the history of the Wagner Act of 1935 and the Taft-Hartley law which supplanted it, retaining many of the Wagner Act's original provisions but making the labor law more friendly to management through such things as outlawing the closed ship while permitting a union ship supported by a vote of the union membership, requiring labor, as well as management, to bargain in good faith, and providing for injunctive relief against strikes which affected adversely the national interests, such as those of the coal and transportation industries.
Currently, the repeal of Taft-Hartley was sought by the Administration and in its stead would be re-enacted an altered version of the Wagner Act. An alternative measure was being proposed in each chamber to amend Taft-Hartley in certain respects.
The piece provides its recommendations on what the ideal labor bill should contain, balancing the interests of labor and management.
"Farmer Among Friends" finds that Governor Kerr Scott's appointees to the Highway Commission, nine out of ten being farmers, meant that the cities would not get their fair share of the State's highway money for local street improvement and maintenance. The Governor's appointments had been consistent with his rural roads improvement program. The Commission had allocated a million dollars for highways in cities and towns during the current fiscal year, whereas if the 200-million dollar rural road bond issue were to pass, the Commission would administer 200 times that amount for rural roads in the space of four years.
The piece offers that the Governor's statement that the state was "predominantly" rural appeared incorrect; it was exclusively rural insofar as distribution of State services.
"Tale of Four Cities" tells of one-sixth of all eligible voters in Greensboro, about 5,000, having turned out for a non-partisan primary, a record. About a fourth had voted in Raleigh, which the News & Observer had described as "shockingly low". In High Point, similarly low numbers turned out for the primary.
By contrast, 77 percent of Charlotte's 31,000 registered voters came to the polls in the recent municipal primary. But some 25,000 eligible voters had not registered.
It urges registered voters to vote in the upcoming run-off for City Council the following Tuesday, as the real power in city government resided in the Council.
A piece from the Charleston (S.C.) News & Courier, titled "Fluorination Makes Furyonation", tells of the Charlotte citizenry being up in arms since the presumed initiation of fluoridation of the water supply recently, for its killing their goldfish, staining their clothes, ruining photographic materials and tasting badly. But then the Water Department reported that no fluoridation had occurred before the raft of complaints.
The piece presumes that because of ABC-controlled sales of liquor, the citizens had not been partaking of water until they heard of the impending fluorination and then began tentatively testing the waters. Because of having become inured to liquor, any water necessarily tasted badly, producing the "furyonation".
It suggests that Charlotte residents import their water, as they once had their liquor, from the South Carolina towns of Fort Mill, Lancaster, and Rock Hill.
There is a wheel
Arthur Krock of the New York Times provides an hypothetical speech of the President to the Congress in which he admits that the supposed mandate in the election had turned out not to be one and that campaign promises therefore had to be altered accordingly.
Drew Pearson tells of Government personnel doing favors for large corporations and then taking lucrative jobs with those companies. Such was the case with an RFC official who arranged a three million dollar loan for the Waltham Watch Company and then was hired by that company immediately at three times his $10,000 Government salary. Similarly, a three million dollar loan for the Plywood Plastics Corp. was arranged by an RFC official, who was then hired by that company for $18,000, $22,000 by the third year of employment.
One of the worst scandals in Washington was that retired Army and Navy officers, many drawing Government pensions, were working for private companies to obtain contracts with the Army and Navy.
Senator Raymond Baldwin of Connecticut, 29 years in public service, had a lifelong ambition of being a member of the Connecticut Supreme Court. Hearing of it, newly elected Democratic Governor Chester Bowles appointed the GOP Senator. His appointment would not become effective until the following December. Mr. Pearson notes that former President Hoover had once described then Governor Baldwin as the ablest Republican Governor in the country. He says that as a Senator, he had also lived up to that appraisal.
The Federal aid to education bill was set to pass the Congress provided the Catholic Church gave its blessing. In an effort to obtain Catholic cooperation, Senator Elbert Thomas of Utah, head of the Labor Committee, sought two Catholic Senators, J. Howard McGrath of Rhode Island and James Murray of Montana, to join in sponsorship of the bill. They agreed provided the Church did not turn against the bill, in which case they would have to bow out. Senator Thomas had not included parochial schools within the ambit of the bill, to avoid the Constitutional proscription against Government establishment of a religion, the inherent doctrine of separation of church and state. But to appease Catholics, Senator Thomas had proposed a separate bill under which both public and parochial schools would receive 35 million dollars in health benefits, a bill passed overwhelmingly by the Senate during the week on a bipartisan vote.
A VFW-sponsored Loyalty Day parade in New York, he suggests, would do more than witch-hunts to stimulate patriotic thinking.
Ford Motor Company would reject demands by the UAW for wage increases as Ford was already paying the top wages in the auto industry.
Stewart Alsop, in Tokyo, tells of the military occupation of Japan having run its course such that changes needed to be made lest a colonial status for the country become permanent. General MacArthur had presciently stated in the early days of the occupation that occupation would collapse after about the third year.
The reasons for this inevitability were that military men were ill-suited to governing duties, occupation brought into existence a privileged class separate from the governed, in this case American civilians who were barred from fraternization with the Japanese, and third, that the real political life of the country became smothered under military control.
The American occupation of Japan had been comparatively peaceful and benevolent. It had accomplished a lot of positive things, the most impressive being land reform. But those accomplishments were now over and time had come for needed reform. The military, he finds, should return to its proper role and the Army should be removed from the cities. Such a move would likely result initially in a terrible Japanese government, but the other option would be colonialism maintained by the U.S.
Marquis Childs tells of a letter he received from a school teacher making $2,800 per year, with medical expenses for the previous five years amounting to 25 to 30 percent of his salary. During the current year, a bout with cancer brought the medical bill to $2,300.
Recently, the teacher and his wife had gotten into an argument with a medical doctor friend regarding compulsory national health insurance. The teacher was not definitely in favor of it but wanted some relief from his heavy debt. The doctor contended that voluntary health insurance was the answer. The teacher responded that Blue Cross covered only five percent of his medical expenses. The doctor asserted that the AMA had dragged its feet on promoting voluntary plans, but that there were several which paid more in cases of catastrophic health care. The teacher said that such plans cost too much. Eventually, the doctor charged that a government-run program would become rife with corruption.
Mr. Childs ventures that there were two steps which Congress needed to take. One was to expand the present program of hospital construction aided by Federal funds and the other was to supply Federal money for training more doctors and providing more medical research.
Framed Edition
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