The Charlotte News
Tuesday, June 7, 1949
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Senator Frank Graham of North Carolina had asked to appear before the joint Senate-House Atomic Energy Committee to respond to the statement made by Atomic Energy Commission chairman David Lilienthal that he had been one of two persons whom the AEC had cleared for security despite a negative report by the AEC's security officer. The other had been Bureau of Standards director Dr. Edward U. Condon. Senator Graham had been appointed to the Institute of Nuclear Physics, a position he had resigned in March after being appointed to the Senate to fill the seat of newly elected Senator J. Melville Broughton who had died. Senator Brien McMahon of Connecticut, chairman of the Committee, had indicated that Senator Graham would be permitted to appear if he wished, as his name had been mentioned in hearings regarding Senator Bourke Hickenlooper's charge of mismanagement of the AEC by Mr. Lilienthal, seeking the latter's resignation.
Senator McMahon also had asked Defense Secretary Louis Johnson to comment on the rumor that the Defense Establishment was trying to wrest control of atomic energy from the civilian AEC, to which Mr. Johnson replied that there was no substance to the rumor and that he would work hard to insure that the AEC continued its control of atomic energy.
The President nominated Army Undersecretary Gordon Gray of Winston-Salem to be the new Secretary of the Army, replacing Kenneth Royall of North Carolina who had recently resigned. Defense Secretary Louis Johnson had wanted the President to appoint Curtis Calder, a somewhat controversial New York utilities executive. Mr. Gray was the president of Piedmont Publishing Co. in Winston-Salem, publisher of the Winston-Salem Journal and Twin City Sentinel as well as owner of WSJS radio station. He had served three terms in the North Carolina General Assembly, had volunteered to serve in World War II, entering as a private and discharged as a captain following service both stateside and abroad. He had been named Assistant Secretary of the Army in September, 1947 and became Undersecretary on May 29, 1949.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee recommended in a formal report ratification of the NATO treaty, stating that it was the best way to avoid World War III.
In Paris, at the Council of Foreign Ministers meeting, the foreign ministers of the four powers met again, this time in the first open meeting since the previous Thursday, to discuss Berlin. During the closed meetings there had been no agreement reached between Russia and the three Western powers and it was not expected that agreement would be achieved this date.
According to the Census Bureau, unemployment in the country reached a postwar peak of 3,289,000, an increase of 273,000 during the previous month. The Bureau commented that ordinarily unemployment dropped seasonally between April and May. The previous high in unemployment was reached the prior February. Despite the change, however, more people were employed than a year earlier. One reason cited for the drop was that job seekers, especially school age youths, were entering the market faster than job opportunities had opened.
In New York, in the perjury trial of Alger Hiss, Whittaker Chambers testified that he had lied seven times before the Federal Grand Jury which indicted Mr. Hiss the previous December, including a prior statement, admitted the previous Thursday, that he did not know of any espionage work for the Soviets. The admission came after the judge stated that he found Mr. Chambers's testimony inconsistent with his Grand Jury testimony. Mr. Chambers also admitted that in a civil deposition the previous December he had stated that he could not remember who actually gave him the microfilmed documents which he secreted in a pumpkin on his Maryland farm after they had been hidden for a decade at the home of his nephew in New York, the revelation of which in December together with his testimony to the grand jury that he got the microfilm from Mr. Hiss, along with other typed, transcribed State Department documents revealed in the context of discovery in Mr. Hiss's defamation suit the prior November, led directly to the grand jury indictment of Mr. Hiss a few days later in December.
So, naturally, we anticipate that the Government, in the interests of justice, will dismiss these phony charges, the result of HUAC trying to salvage its lost reputation with the American public, and that the Government will seek an indictment from the grand jury against Mr. Chambers.
No? Say what about what and make
what perfectly clear, Dick?
In Washington, in the trial of Judy Coplon, former Justice Department employee accused of espionage by supplying secret government documents to a former Russian employee of the U.N. Secretariat, the judge ruled that the jury could be apprised of all of the contents of her purse when arrested, including data slips previously withheld by the Government. The ruling overruled a prosecution objection for the confidential nature of the documents. The prosecution wanted only to present extracts from an FBI report sufficient to identify the papers found in her purse, rather than the full report which described the documents. The first document introduced into evidence indicated that Amtorg—a Soviet trading organization for which had worked Andrei Schevchenko, identified in the HUAC hearings of the previous day as seeking secret information in 1945-46 from Bell Aircraft and G. E. employees on the jet engine—, was engaged in sending atomic secrets to Russia. The Government admitted that the FBI memorandum contained much false information, but an FBI agent stated that the statement anent Amtorg was, as far as he knew, true.
CIO president Philip Murray accused UMW president John L. Lewis of lack of responsibility and rumor-mongering after Mr. Lewis had stated that Mr. Murray and AFL president William Green had agreed secretly to a weak compromise on repeal of Taft-Hartley. Mr. Murray said his and the CIO's position had not changed, that they were still in favor of complete repeal of Taft-Hartley and replacing it with a modified version of the 1935 Wagner Act.
In New York, 2,000 longshoremen from Hudson River piers joined fellow longshoremen pickets and charged a group of rival demonstrators. Passersby were knocked down in the melee as police rode horses onto the sidewalks to restore order. Police were struck by fists and sticks and many of the longshoremen were knocked to the ground.
Also in New York, two guards of the Wells Fargo Express Co. were robbed of $19,000 in payroll funds by two armed men on the Columbia University campus, virtually devoid of students a week after commencement exercises. The men escaped in an automobile.
A C-46 transport airplane from San Juan, Puerto Rico, bound for the United States, crashed in the Atlantic and 47 of 75 passengers were missing and feared dead. There were 28 known survivors. Nineteen of the passengers were small children and nineteen were women. The plane had crashed within minutes after takeoff, following a request to make an emergency landing.
Television set prices were cut by General Electric on seven models by between $20 and $100.
In Carson City, Nev., a man who was an Hungarian refugee was executed in the gas chamber for the rape-murder 14 months earlier of the wife of a Presbyterian minister. Before entering the chamber, he said, "At last, I'm happy."
In Newton, N.C., the assistant police chief, charged with assault with a blackjack in April, was sentenced to three months on the roads following a hearing in Recorder's Court. Another police officer was sentenced on the same charge to a suspended sentence on condition that he pay a $50 fine and court costs. The victim had been charged with operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol and was found guilty and sentenced to three months suspended sentence on condition of payment of a fine of $100 plus costs and surrender of his driver's license. All three defendants appealed to Superior Court.
Dick Young of The News tells of the $500,000 local bond issue on the ballot for the following Saturday to permit the City to build off-street parking facilities.
The superintendent of the Charlotte Water Department said that a record amount of water had been pumped the previous evening between 6:30 and 7:30, 25.75 million gallons. The cause of the record usage was believed to be the hot, dry weather resulting in excessive use of water for showers and watering of gardens and lawns. Water pressure had dropped in some outlying areas as a result of the usage. The water pressure, however, was quickly restored with an auxiliary water supply.
Don't let the heat cause you momentary irritation with those close to you such that you do something you might later regret.
In Stromboli, Italy, the eruption
the previous day of a volcano threatened to interrupt filming of a
movie
On the editorial page, "Water Bond Issue" tells of the $675,000 water bond issue set for vote the following Saturday. The newspaper endorses it and urges readers to vote for it to maintain an adequate supply of drinking water in the face of expanding population and annexation.
"New Speed-Up" tells of the vice-president of General Electric, L. R. Boulware, writing in the current issue of Commentator an article regarding "speed-ups" in industry, that there were good ones and bad ones, the latter being those against which the employees rebelled while product quality suffered.
But to provide a product at lower cost to the consumer, higher production was necessary when materials were high and labor was being paid high wages. Thus, there needed to be employer-employee cooperation to effect such production.
The regimen he had suggested, opines the piece, would take the country far into the fuller life everybody sought.
"Hope for Sufferers" tells of sufferers of arthritis finding little relief from doctors. Recently, a hormone treatment had been found, however, which relieved the symptoms. Desoxycholic acid was taken from ox bile and cortisone was then obtained from the acid. Cortisone injections on a regular basis relieved the symptoms of arthritis.
The problem was that to produce a half pound of the acid required 65 pounds of ox bile, thus causing cortisone to be too expensive for most sufferers of arthritis. Three weeks of treatment would cost about $18,000.
Tests were being undertaken and it was hoped that the cost could be brought down in time.
Try magnesium.
A piece from the Denver Post, titled "Shades of Noah Webster!" tells of the country's youth replacing New Deal alphabet agency names with their own anagrammatic neologisms.
The aircraft industry was referring to "jet assisted takeoff" as "Jato". And every six-year old was likely aware that "fido" meant "fog, intensive, dispersal of", regarding equipment to clear fog from airfields.
Teenagers were now using the term "snoff" to refer to "Saturday night only, friend, female". "Gypu" meant "groceries, yourself, pick up", in reference to the local grocery store. A "jump" was a "jiggle up, many people" trolley car.
The piece tells of inventing its own term, "pacoslif", meaning "people, all, confusion of, silly language, intended for". It invites the reader to have a go at it.
Drew Pearson tells of the President wanting to attend his family First Baptist Church more often, but did not like to attract attention by so doing, was a firm believer in going to church for the sake of it, not to see who else was attending. Regularly, people would call the pastor of the church to see if the President would be present. He had recently responded to one such caller that the President would not be there on Sunday but God would.
Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko had for the previous year laid the groundwork for the current Council of Foreign Ministers meeting in Paris by breaking down the social barriers between diplomats of the West and the iron curtain, frequently accepting dinner invitations from U.S. chief U.N. delegate Warren Austin at which former Assistant Secretary of State Nelson Rockefeller and other broad-minded businessmen were present. Mrs. Austin, hostess for the dinners, and Mrs. Gromyko had been responsible for producing a congenial atmosphere on these occasions.
As a result of the conviviality, Mr. Gromyko had reported to the Politburo, at Stalin's request, that he perceived a genuine desire in the U.S. for East-West cooperation.
Big shipping lobbyists were paying no attention to a law requiring registration with the Maritime Commission, on the books since 1936. Mr. Pearson provides a list of the lobbyists and the companies or organizations on whose behalf they lobbied. They sought such things as accelerated depreciation for ships over the course of seven years while demanding that the Government figure depreciation over a period of 20 years in paying for private ships taken over during wartime.
When questioned by the column, Maritime Commissioner Joe Carson wanted to know who had tipped off Drew Pearson and refused to answer questions.
The Soviet-puppet Government in Czechoslovakia wanted to take a number of non-Communists into the Government and to partake of the Marshall Plan. The proposed changes, however, appeared illusory, related to Greece. Andrei Gromyko had proposed at the U.N. that Greece hold free elections, to which Dean Rusk of the State Department and Hector McNeil of the British Foreign Office had responded that he should not dare talk of democracy in Greece when Russia had abolished free elections and democracy in Czechoslovakia. Thus, the Kremlin was directing the change in Czechoslovakia so that it could criticize the Government in Greece without embarrassment.
Marquis Childs discusses the controversy surrounding the B-36 strategic bomber, adopted as the main strategic bomber within the air defense strategy. But tests by the Navy had shown that even at 40,000 feet, the bomber was susceptible to being attacked by fighter jets. The Navy claimed that the Air Force had suppressed the results of these tests, along with their own test results which had shown likewise.
A British trade publication, Flight, had published an article saying that British tests had demonstrated the vulnerability of the B-36 when chased by a British fighter, the D. H. Ghost-Vampire, even up to 50,000 feet and beyond. It also claimed that the fuel necessitated for long-range bombing, the primary attribute of the B-36, was so heavy as to outweigh the bomb payload.
It was thus not hard to imagine that the Russians had similar fighters which could reach the slow B-36.
Thus, the American public had a right to know through the Congressional investigation of the Senate Armed Services Committee whether the B-36 was the right plane, and an honest inquiry rather than an attempt to impugn the motives of those who had ordered it would be salutary.
Stewart Alsop, still in Canton, China, again discusses the situation in China, with Kwangsi and Yunnan Provinces affording a position which the Nationalist forces could hold for a period long enough to enable the French to shore up China's southern border with Indo-China, especially critical to avoid the prospect that the Chinese Communists would link up with the Communist forces of Ho Chi Minh.
Kwangsi was the private domain of Acting President Li Tsung-Jen and General Pai Chung, his military partner. Recognition of these forces by the U.S. was vital to inspire the will to resist. For the present, a 50 million dollar American purchase of useless silver and a manageable supply of arms would be enough to sustain the Nationalist forces under Li and Pai and accomplish the task necessary with regard to the border with Indo-China. If Kwangsi could be held, then the whole strategically vital area could be held for a time.
If the Chinese Communists reached the southern border of China and linked up with the Communists in Indo-China and Burma, however, the situation would be impossible to counteract effectively.
Holding Kwangsi and Yunnan for the nonce would also provide the U.S. time to effect a clear policy on the Far East, "instead of continuing to imitate chickens with their heads cut off."
Samuel Grafton, no longer carried by The News, advises that the world would be well served by the foreign ministers meeting in Paris breaking down the whole problem of the competition between East and West into manageable bits and pieces for resolution, one piece at a time. No one could realistically expect one conference to resolve the century old conflict between capitalism and communism. But even if the conference resolved only the governance of Berlin, restoring unity, it would accomplish a major goal toward effectuating peace.
The West should take the lead in doing so as democracy was adept at making such large problems manageable by solving them bit by bit and letting time and natural processes aid in the process.
If the foreign ministers sought to do too much, they would run the risk of accomplishing nothing.
A letter writer from Detroit tells of reading of Charlotte in the current issue of Business Week and being fascinated by the city. She had been in Charlotte frequently in the mid-thirties with her husband and found it quite hospitable, could not understand why it had not become another Atlanta. She had spent eight years in the South and says that they were her happiest years. She would leave Detroit and move back to the South were it not for the fact that she had a secure job. She wishes luck to the city and its surrounding communities.
A letter responds to the letter writer who had found that many were turning away from faith and that a return to old-time gospel religion was required.
This writer recommends adherence to the Golden Rule.
A letter writer from Florence, S.C., responds to a piece reprinted from The Asheville Citizen which had pointed out, in jocund manner, that the South had eight more survivors of the Civil War still living than did the North even if the former had lost the war.
The writer points out that the South was taking young boys toward the end of the war and so was the reason why more Southern veterans were still living.
He complains that the piece provided a weak interpretation while quoting from Life and the Dictionary of American History, both of which publications he already had, causing him to waste his money on The News. He says that he respected the newspaper but hopes that in the future it would stick to its own good editorials and not waste time with such matter from other newspapers.
Listen heya, baw, you come down heya talkin' dat Yankee talk, you get youself shot. You heya?
Framed Edition
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