The Charlotte News

Thursday, May 19, 1949

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that in Berlin, Maj. General George Hays, deputy military governor of the American occupation zone, said that the Russians were modifying their new restrictions on truck traffic from West Germany into Berlin to enable trucks carrying freight to enter without written permits from the Soviet zone economic commission, but that other types of trucks would require the permit to cross the Eastern frontier into Berlin. General Hays said that even this remaining restriction violated the agreement lifting the blockade and that continued negotiations would seek to remove the limitation. He believed that the restriction was introduced as a bargaining chip in the conference of the Council of Foreign Ministers anent Germany to take place May 23. He added that he did not think the Russians acted in bad faith.

The Russian sentries had been stopping all loaded trucks between Helmstedt and Berlin, even trucks which had permits for the Eastern sector. All other roads into Berlin remained open. The stoppage had diminished considerably truck traffic from the British zone into Berlin. Truck drivers had camped all night alongside the road beside open fires. The continuing airlift and trains remained the only reliable means of transport of Western goods into Berlin.

Charles Collisson, formerly deputy chief of the American-British decartelization authority, said that he was fired, in advance of John McCloy taking over as civilian high commissioner of the U.S. occupation zone of Germany, because of his favoring "honest decartelization". He said that the requests to him that he resign were based on his testimony to the Army Department Commission—the report of which had stated that decartelization was being evaded and that the same threats to international trade continued to exist which had helped to bring on World War II. Mr. Collisson then refused to submit his resignation. Richard Bronson, head of decartelization in the zone, said that there was no relationship between Mr. Collisson's testimony to the Commission and his "release". Mr. McCloy said that he had no comment on the matter.

The Senate Armed Services Committee recommended confirmation of the appointments of Francis Matthews of Omaha as Secretary of the Navy and Dan Kimball of California as Undersecretary, as well as Gordon Gray of Winston-Salem, N.C., as Assistant Secretary of the Army. Senator Lyndon Johnson of Texas was designated to ask for suspension of Senate rules and quick approval of each nomination.

Before the joint Senate-House Atomic Energy subcommittee, Senator Joseph O'Mahoney of Wyoming told Atomic Energy Commission chairman David Lilienthal that no money was to be spent from AEC funds for the education of Communists and that such a prohibition would be in the next appropriations bill for the AEC. Subcommittee members appeared to agree. Most of the questioning of Mr. Lilienthal concerned the AEC scholarship grant of $1,600 to UNC physics graduate student Hans Freistadt, a self-avowed Communist originally from Austria and naturalized as a U.S. citizen, who had testified the previous day. At one point in the colloquy, Senator Kenneth McKellar of Tennessee told his old nemesis, Mr. Lilienthal, formerly head of TVA, that he had never answered any of the Senator's questions straight previously. Mr. Lilienthal, in response to Senator McKellar, stated that he had never recommended Mr. Freistadt's scholarship. He told Senator Kenneth Wherry of Nebraska that he did not believe any Communist should receive such a grant-in-aid but opposed FBI investigation of candidates who did not have access to secret information. Mr. Freistadt's work was on the special theory of relativity and did not involve secret information. Mr. Lilienthal said, in response to another question, that bureaucratic investigation of students would "sure as hell" interfere with freedom of education. He had said previously that the prospect of such inquiries into the personal lives of young scientists would deter them from applying to the program, designed to encourage scientific advancement of the country in the field of nuclear physics.

It was revealed by The Daily Tar Heel in Chapel Hill that two Charlotte residents who were juniors at UNC had provided the information to Senator Clyde Hoey and radio commentator Fulton Lewis that Mr. Freistadt was a Communist studying under an AEC scholarship. J. R. Cherry, Jr., revealed the information to Senator Hoey and Theodore Newton told Mr. Lewis. The mother of Mr. Newton confirmed the story to The News, as did Mr. Cherry to the Tar Heel. Mr. Cherry, a veteran, told Senator Hoey in his letter that he believed that "every card-holding Communist in the country is a potential enemy."

That is why Mr. Freistadt had started that campaign on campus for Mr. Cherry to become President-elect of the United States in 1952. The only question remaining was who might be his running-mate.

Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia called for the Administration to cut 500,000 employees from the Government payrolls as a cost-cutting measure. He said that civilian employment by the Government had been increasing at the rate of 322 persons per day for the previous 15 months. Even with the proposed five percent reduction, he said, the number on the payroll would be at 175 percent of the prewar peak. He also urged rejection of "new functions, programs, policies and agencies".

The previous week, President Truman had told a group of veterans that there were "too many Byrds" in the Congress.

Senator Homer Ferguson of Michigan proposed an amendment to an Agriculture Department appropriation bill to cut five percent from the budget, totaling 36 million dollars from the requested budget of 723 million.

President Eurico Dutra of Brazil told a joint session of Congress that the U.S. was a major prop for Western Hemispheric solidarity.

In Munich, a young German woman was convicted by an American military court of providing American military government documents to unauthorized persons for unauthorized purposes. She was sentenced to 30 months in jail. The woman, by her own admission, had joined the Soviet Information Service while working at the AMG office in Bavaria. She testified that she did so because of Soviet threats against her parents, residents of the Eastern zone of Germany.

The CIO executive board passed three resolutions calling for price reductions and immediate wage increases.

In Detroit, Ford Motor Company renewed its appeal to the UAW to end its two-week old strike regarding an assembly line speedup at the River Rouge plant in Dearborn.

In New York, the author of the Broadway hit Mister Roberts, Thomas Heggen, 30, was found dead in the bathtub at his apartment. The cause of death was under investigation.

In Atlanta, the investigation continued into the April 21 murder of Metropolitan Opera tenor John Garris, with a police detective indicating that he placed little credence in a story provided by a 19-year old woman who said that she had seen the murder. The woman was being held on suspicion of narcotics. An anonymous tip had led to her information about the murder. She claimed to have met Mr. Garris in Charlotte three years earlier and that he was the father of her 18-month old child. Wanting him to pay support for the child, she and three others met with Mr. Garris the night of the slaying, after which a fight took place and one of her companions allegedly shot Mr. Garris.

In Morganton, N.C., two brothers, ages 20 and 24, were arrested for allegedly beating their father to death. An eyewitness claimed to have seen the beating during a fight at the home.

At Davidson College near Charlotte, the students inaugurated Barefoot Day to mark the last day of classes before the start of final examinations, starting a new tradition, as displayed in a photograph.

Say it ain't so.

On the editorial page, "Christmas in May" finds fault with Governor Kerr Scott for criticizing The News for contending that his rural roads program and school construction program would benefit Mecklenburg County less than it would pay in taxes under either program. The Governor, in response, stated that he had just provided $185,000 for roads through Mecklenburg County.

But the piece explains that the $185,000 had already been earmarked for the state road through Charlotte to relieve congestion and was subject to Federal matching funds only for such a road through a city of more than 5,000 population. The money would have been routinely approved by the State Highway Commission but for the Governor having told the Commission to hold it up pending his approval.

"The Milk Squabble" tells of ten local dairies having an agreement whereby they did not sell ungraded milk, taking only Grade A milk for resale in liquid form. They did buy condensed and powdered milk from outside sources, made from ungraded milk.

The City Health Department wanted a revised local ordinance to prevent a local company from receiving two grades of liquid milk in the same plant, reducing the temptation of plant managers to mix the two grades.

A new dairy was planning to build a new plant, however, based on the old ordinance, and to use two grades of milk, the lower for by-products, to be prohibited under the proposed new ordinance.

The piece believes that the proposed ordinance tended therefore toward an ex post facto law and that its substance should have been written into the informal agreement between the ten dairies. The City Council, it opines, ought ultimately to take action to protect the consumer.

"Like Father, Etc." tells of the victory the previous day in the New York Twentieth District Congressional race by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., over the Tammany-backed candidate, to replace deceased Sol Bloom. To assure his success as a Congressman, Mr. Roosevelt would only need ask himself how his father would do things. He had supported during the campaign his father's New Deal and President Truman's Fair Deal, including civil rights and public housing. The Tammany crowd had accused him of being an immature playboy, but the voters were impressed by Mr. Roosevelt.

It posits, however, that it was a dangerous concept to assume that the adage "like father, like son" always applied. In this instance, Mr. Roosevelt appeared to have the public interest in mind. But in the cases of Senator Russell Long of Louisiana, son of deceased Governor and Senator Huey Long, and Governor Herman Talmadge of Georgia, son of deceased former Governor Eugene Talmadge, there remained questions.

A piece by Better Schools and Roads, Inc. presents the background of the 25-million dollar school bond issue, telling of it providing, if passed, $250,000 to each of the state's 100 counties. The bonds would be paid by the State out of its General Fund.

Drew Pearson tells of the reason why the American delegation to the U.N. abstained from voting on renewing diplomatic relations with Spain being that Eleanor Roosevelt threatened to denounce the State Department if the delegation voted for renewed recognition. The agreement by Secretary Acheson to abstain and then to issue a statement highly critical of Franco as a dictator placated Mrs. Roosevelt.

Senator Harry Cain's wife and his girlfriend met face to face in a hospital visit of the Senator, and his wife lashed out at the girlfriend, claiming that she would never get her husband. The divorce action of Senator Cain was being handled by Ed Eisenhower, brother of General Eisenhower.

The states of Texas, Alabama, Nebraska, and Florida had bills pending to abolish Federal rent control, permissible under the new rent control extension law. But they were telling voters that the states could reinstate it later, not permissible under the law.

American Ambassador to China Leighton Stuart was angry with the British for making an offer to the Chinese Communists to provide recognition to them if they would allow the British to keep Hong Kong. The British had determined that they could not hold out against the Communists in Hong Kong. The deal would undercut the Nationalists by giving the Communists their biggest diplomatic victory.

Senator Joseph O'Mahoney of Wyoming wanted the Atomic Energy Commission to have to be accountable on contracts to provide transparency to the Congress with regard to what particular contracts represented. At present, for reasons of secrecy, the AEC could make contracts and seek appropriations without disclosing the purpose of the contract. Senator O'Mahoney wanted the contracts filed with the Committee without revealing secret information.

Chiang Kai-Shek had recently told Acting President Li Tsung-Jen not to make a stand at the Yangtze River. He gave no reason. It was such spineless behavior by the Nationalists which had caused the State Department to recommend refusal of aid.

The U.S. and Britain had begun construction of a base on the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean, part of a master plan for sea and air bases under NATO.

Marquis Childs tells of an estimated 250,000 to 300,000 Americans set to sail or fly to Europe during the summer. The hope by ERP officials was that the tourist trade would help restore the economy of the Western European nations. Mr. Childs thinks that the estimate was overstated, as the boom year for European tourists from America in 1929 had been fueled by the desire to escape prohibition. The present tourist trade, however, would be more exploratory in nature, young people wanting to find out about Europe and farm groups wishing to find out about ERP.

The A Capella Choir of Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn., was singing its way across the country to raise money for their trip to Norway. Such gestures of good will, he suggests, were beneficial to enable Europeans to find out about Americans.

More Americans received paid vacations than before the war, with 97 percent of all white collar workers so benefiting.

Joseph Alsop assesses the attempt to replace Taft-Hartley and the President's attitude gravely imperiling the effort by his posing as the persecuted politician. Progressive Democrats as Senators Hubert Humphrey, Lister Hill, and Paul Douglas could easily join with moderate Republicans, such as Senators Wayne Morse and George Aiken, to pass a moderate labor bill, but for the President's attitude.

Senator Elbert Thomas of Utah insisted on standing by his Thomas-Lesinski Administration-sponsored measure to replace Taft-Hartley with a modified version of the Wagner Act. But that effort was now foredoomed.

Senators Humphrey and Douglas had decided to ignore the White House and work in the Labor Committee with Senators Aiken and Morse to effect a moderate measure. But if the President stood in the way, the victory, by default, would be that of Senator Taft and his proposed modification of Taft-Hartley.

The President had already killed an attempt at moderate legislation out of the House.

Moreover, labor approved of the Humphrey-Hill-Douglas-Aiken-Morse compromise, preferred it to the President's following non-compromise to complete defeat.

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