The Charlotte News

Saturday, May 28, 1949

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that in Paris at the meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers, the three Western powers proposed establishment of a federal government for all of Germany based on the new West German constitution. The three powers favored freedom from arbitrary arrest, freedom of association, freedom of speech, press, and radio, freedom of democratic political parties and of elections, and an independent judiciary, all to be supervised by the four occupying powers. Germany would have control of all governmental powers except security matters and administration of Germany's obligations, to be supervised by the four powers, with Germany gradually able to increase its peaceful conduct of political and economic life in Europe, but not militarily. Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Vishinsky called the plan "one-sided" and unacceptable to the Russians.

Below Shanghai, all four U.S. warships sailed from their anchorages in the Yangtze River after having withdrawn from Shanghai with the approach of the Communists who had taken over the city the previous day.

For the Memorial Day weekend, the President was sailing aboard his yacht Williamsburg, along the Potomac and up Chesapeake Bay.

Ceremonies would be held at Arlington and all across the country for the war dead the following Monday. Senator Millard Tydings of Maryland, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, would deliver the oration at Arlington. At Fort Knox, Ky., a museum would be dedicated to General George S. Patton.

In Oklahoma City, the State Legislature passed a bill lifting the 41-year old ban of black students in the state's universities. It would allow black students to attend the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma A & M. The law brought the state into conformity with a Federal Court order to allow black students to attend the universities absent establishment of equal facilities for blacks, found wanting in certain fields of study.

In Detroit, a thirteen hour session to try to resolve the 24-day old strike of Ford workers disputing the speedup of an assembly line at the River Rouge plant in Dearborn had left the strike still unsettled. The choice of an arbiter was the main source of deadlock.

In New York, cartoonist Robert Ripley died of a heart attack at age 55. He had started as a sports cartoonist in San Francisco at age 16 and come to New York in 1913 at age 19. The first "Believe It or Not" cartoon appeared in 1919. In 1928, William Randolph Hearst had seen a copy of Mr. Ripley's book and signed him on as a syndicated cartoonist for $100,000 per year. The column circulated in 38 countries, translated into 17 languages. He was to be buried in his birthplace of Santa Rosa, California. Only two days before he entered the hospital, he had done a television program for NBC on the story of the writing of "taps", the bugle call for the dead.

His death could have been, however, the result of the Government, displeased with the revelations subliminally contained within his cartoons, or the men from Mars seeking his knowledge, arriving daily in their space ships to take over the planet, believe it or not.

In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, defense counsel in the trial of the doctor accused of murdering his wife's paramour urged the jury to adopt "the unwritten law" regarding homicide as an acceptable resolution to marital infidelity. The prosecution sought a verdict of guilty for first degree murder. The defense attorney concluded his final summation by saying, "May you be guided by the wisdom of Him that counts the sparrow's fall and bring in the wholesome and gladsome verdict of not guilty."

As we suggested at the outset of the trial when this attorney told the jury in his opening statement that the defendant had not committed the homicide but that if they concluded that he had, they should find that it was in self-defense, the hapless doctor, who would be found guilty of second degree murder and sentenced to 70 years in prison, cut short in 1951 by his suicide, could have used another attorney.

In Callander, Ontario, the Dionne quintuplets turned 15 and were intelligent, unspoiled girls.

In Cannes, France, Rita Hayworth and Prince Ali Khan were to go through Moslem rites of marriage after the day before having gone through civil rites. The Prince would declare the amount of dowry he was pledging to his bride.

In Washington, thousands of stolen bras, panties, slips and girdles were recovered by police after the arrest of a man who had a hobby of hoarding such items. He had dropped a woman's skirt from his trouser leg while police questioned him on a report that he had been seen loitering in a basement laundry room. They searched his apartment to find thousands of women's undergarments, stolen from Bethesda apartment dwellers during the previous year. He had not tried to sell any of them.

In Montreat, N.C., the Southern Presbyterian Church conference continued with a reorganization plan being considered.

Near Lenoir, N.C., two teenaged gunmen robbed passengers on a Queen City bus of $166 in cash and a check for $161 the previous night, but were arrested an hour later by police. They had stopped the bus in the Blue Ridge Mountains south of Blowing Rock.

Near Shallotte, N.C., seven persons were killed and three critically injured when two cars collided head-on at 6:15 a.m. just after a light rain on a slick highway.

In Charlotte, a car went out of control on E. Trade Street, hit two persons, one without injury, and crashed into the front of a variety store. The driver said that the car's brakes failed while he was searching for a missing relative who worked in a shoe store.

Help him find his relative before he kills someone.

On the editorial page, "School Bond Issue—IV" tells of another reason to reject the 25 million dollar school construction bond issue set for referendum on June 4, that it did not give special consideration to black schools as recommended by the State Education Commission. The State average investment in white county schools was $154 per pupil while only $44 for black county schools. In city schools, the ratio was $305 for white pupils to $129 for black pupils. The range of investment for white schools across the 100 counties of the state was $459 to $40, while in black schools it was $187 to $2.13.