The Charlotte News
Tuesday, August 30, 1949
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Maj. General Harry Vaughan, the President's military aide, admitted to the Senate Investigating subcommittee that he had collected campaign money in 1946 from some of the men he aided in dealing with the Government. In response to questioning by Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, he said he received $2,000 to $3,000 from the owner of Tanforan racetrack in San Bruno, California, for help in January, 1948 with Housing Expediter Tighe Woods in obtaining exception to restrictions on building materials, but was not aware that James V. Hunt had received any money in the transaction or that he had anything to do with it. Subcommittee chairman Senator Clyde Hoey of North Carolina interrupted to say that he was unaware of any allegation that Mr. Hunt received any fee in the matter. General Vaughan also said that he probably received $2,000 from John Maragon. Both contributions, he believed, went to the Missouri Democratic campaign, and he said that the President was unaware of any of his actions. He denied any impropriety or receipt of any personal fee for his help and denied that he had ever told the State Department that the President was "personally interested" in a trip by Mr. Maragon to Europe in summer, 1945. He admitted, however, writing a letter to the State Department seeking permission for Mr. Maragon to make the trip. Senator McCarthy stated that he believed General Vaughan had not personally profited from his actions. He had also asked the General whether he had ever claimed that some of the money from Mr. Maragon originated with gambling boss Frank Costello and the General responded that he was unaware of any such connection. General Vaughan would resume his testimony the following day.
Russia responded to Yugoslavia's latest note of August 23, which had offered to settle all disputed questions with Russia, including extradition of Russian citizens held for espionage, by saying that Yugoslavia was merely taking orders from its Western masters and had repeated false statements regarding alleged double-crossing by the Soviets at the Austrian treaty conference the previous June by not respecting Yugoslavia's territorial demands.
Representative Adolph Sabath of Illinois said that the President wanted early action after the House recess regarding the Fair Employment Practices Commission legislation, presently before the Rules Committee chaired by Mr. Sabath. The recess would end September 21.
In Evansville, Ind., a grand jury indicted a woman, 28, for poisoning to death her mother and father with arsenic.
In San Francisco, a fire which virtually destroyed a square-block warehouse and office building of Safeway Stores, Inc., was reported to be under control after causing an estimated 1.5 million dollars of damage in six hours. Four firemen were overcome by smoke.
In Florence, S.C., a white boy gave blood to an 18-month old black baby girl, insuring her recovery from an unusual type of anemia. He was summoned by his mother from football practice at his high school after hearing a report that his blood type was needed.
In Raleigh, Governor Kerr Scott appointed Dr. C. Sylvester Green, editor of the Durham Morning Herald, to the State Board of Conservation & Development to replace Josh Horne, publisher from Rocky Mount, who resigned from the Board the previous day in protest of the Governor's recent alleged usurpation of traditional Board functions in naming his private secretary as head of the State advertising division and in canceling a State advertising contract and hiring another firm.
In Winston-Salem, a heavy turnout was reported in the vote on whether to allow ABC-controlled sale of liquor in Forsyth County. Balloting was reported light in neighboring Stokes County on the same issue.
In Philadelphia, the American Legionnaires held their gala parade at their 31st annual convention. The Legion claimed that it was the largest parade in the world. President Truman delivered a keynote address to the convention and then rode in a motorcade through the city streets, showered with confetti and tickertape.
Actress Kathryn Grayson, originally
from Winston-Salem, in Philadelphia for the premiere of a movie
On the editorial page, "Governor of All the People" comments on Governor Scott's paradoxical attitude of being at once inspired by lofty objectives and a sincere concern for his fellow man while also holding intolerance for anyone who disagreed with him, causing him to be surly and sarcastic when logic would better suit. He had to realize that insulting people and breeding animosity in those who ordinarily would be on his side would not work to produce success in his programs.
Twice in one week he had chided State House Speaker K. C. Ramsey for not pushing through the Governor's program fully in the 1949 biennial session of the General Assembly. Mr. Ramsey, in his measured response, appeared to have grown, while Governor Scott, petulant, had shrunk.
The Governor, it reminds, had been elected by all of the people to serve all of the people and would have better cooperation if he recognized the fact and stopped criticizing everyone who disagreed with him.
We could attribute the same problems to the 2016 Republican presidential nominee, except for the fact that we see in him none of the positive attributes displayed by Governor Scott—not one, indeed, the opposite. Mr Scott, for instance, had never formed a cardboard University, was a champion of civil rights for all minorities.
What exactly does this guy do for a living? Manage hotels and buy furniture for them? Sell caps, ties, and shirts, and a few other sundries? What does he do? What has he ever done? Give us one good reason why he should be President. And don't say, "Wall", for that will never occur, dumbbell, any more than a degree from his "University" will provide you anything tangible at all. How many times does this guy have to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge before you say, "Enough with the Wall and 'mass deportation', e-mail bombshell gibberish, and other lies the liar is selling"? He is a professional salesman extraordinaire, who lies at will when necessary to sell his product. You might as well vote for the hawker at the fair for President. The only difference is that the fair hawker did not have a rich slumlord daddy who gave him 40 million dollars to start out in life.
"On Bureaucracy and Morality" comments on the New York Times piece on the page regarding radio program giveaways and the attempt of the FCC to limit them by banning "lotteries", finds that in addition to the issues posed in the piece, there were the issues of the officiousness of Government bureaus and the morality of giveaway programs.
No one questioned the authority of the FCC to regulate the limited bandwidth of the radio dial to avoid chaos. But when it entered the realm of censorship of speech and program content, it was on dangerous ground. It suggests that radio had the right to broadcast as it pleased within bounds acceptable by the public at large. Only the listeners and the radio broadcast industry ought control content.
Sooner or later the public would grow tired of giveaway programs and stop listening, simply through monotony.
It finds useful the warning of the Christian Science Monitor that such programs caused radio and the listeners' tastes to suffer, that a good many Americans looked forward to better fare.
"Educational Crusade" tells of the second annual Resource-Use Education Conference taking place the previous week in Chapel Hill, hearing from State Superintendent of Education Clyde Erwin that textbooks alone could not determine the input for students but that communities and resource agencies had to help discover the important things to teach in this regard. Sociology professor Dr. Howard Odum of the University stressed the need for a balanced resource development program to bring urban and rural groups into closer harmony and produce a higher standard of living for all.
The state had one of the most diverse natural resource bases in the country but remained 40th in economic rank.
The Education Commission report suggested that the reason for the gap might lie in the problems with the state's educational system. The conference intended to place before educators specific information to teach better resource utilization.
Jack Gould of the New York Times, as indicated in the above editorial, discusses the ruling by the FCC, albeit by only a minority of the full Commission, plagued by illness and absence due to travel, to ban certain giveaway shows which relied on calls to remote audiences as inducement to participation. The FCC had vaguely threatened revocation of radio station licenses for continuing to broadcast such shows after October 4. ABC and CBS had vowed to contest the ruling in Federal court.
The issues to be raised were what was a "lottery" and whether the FCC had authority to ban it and revoke a station license for carrying such a program.
In 1940, the FCC had referred to the Justice Department the "Pot o' Gold" program for giving away $1,000 to a person who answered the phone at home. The Justice Department declined to prosecute. But NBC nevertheless withdrew the program.
The FCC contended that since Congress had passed a law preventing lotteries, it was only enforcing that provision. The Commission viewed mere listening to the show as a form of contract consideration, essentially something of value given in exchange for something else of value, in this case, the expectation of winning the contest and the enhancement thereby of advertising revenue, and thus falling within the ambit of the Federal law banning lotteries involving consideration. The National Association of Broadcasters had decried the use of techniques to buy audiences through such giveaways. But if the broadcasters, Mr. Gould concludes, had done their job, there would be no issue. The giveaway programs, most agreed, detracted greatly from the mandate of broadcasters to use the airways responsibly to entertain audiences.
The case would not make its way to the Supreme Court until 1954. In that year, F.C.C. v. A.B.C., 347 U.S. 284, held, 8 to 0, in an opinion delivered by Chief Justice Earl Warren, with Justice William O. Douglas not participating, that the F.C.C. had been in error in interpreting consideration to include mere listening and thus enhanced advertising value, that in terms of the statutory requirement for a prohibited lottery, consideration had to include something of value, as money, given by the contestant to participate in the contest.
The Music
Robert S. Allen, substituting for vacationing Drew Pearson, tells of the Marine commander of Camp Pendleton, California, Maj. General Graves Erskine, having stirred controversy by ordering a private grade school established at the base. Local and state officials claimed that it violated California law as setting up an independent school separate from the State system. Defense Secretary Louis Johnson had sent an assistant to investigate the matter.
Renovations to the Senate and House chambers, despite delays, were expected to be completed by the deadline of December 15.
Robert R. Young, head of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad and the Federation for Railway Progress, was on friendly terms again with one of his former rivals, the Association of American Railroads. He was expected, however, despite the newly found good will, to make another try to control the New York Central.
Senator Harry Cain of Washington was the first Senator from that state in twenty-one years to oppose public power projects. Senator Richard Russell of Georgia voted against a public power project in Montana as a quid pro quo for Senator Zales Ecton of Montana, siding with Montana Power & Light Co., having voted with the Dixiecrats on civil rights during the winter. Senator Russell had voted for all of the other public power projects.
Mr. Allen notes that the Administration's success on the public power projects was the result of support by Senators Lister Hill of Alabama, Robert Kerr of Oklahoma, and Lyndon Johnson of Texas.
Stewart Alsop again visits the topic of American policy toward Asia, saying that the foreign policy both toward Europe and Asia was facing failure. In Europe, the problem was the failing British economy for its gold-dollar reserve shortage, facing bankruptcy in six to eight months unless counter-measures were implemented to prevent it. Otherwise, Britain would cease to be a power and the Western front, of which Britain was the keystone insofar as resistance to the Soviets, would crumble.
In remedy, the British sought to set up an autarchic economy, insulated from American influence and that of the rest of the world while cutting foreign commitments and making barter deals with the Soviet Union and its satellites. Those adjustments would, of themselves, reduce British power and influence in Asia and Western Europe and disintegrate the Anglo-American alliance. That, with the reduction of the military aid program by Congress, would destroy Western European confidence in having the support of the Anglo-American alliance against potential Soviet aggression.
The process in Asia would take a longer time to become manifest but was equally certain to result in war if allowed to continue indefinitely.
China was nearly overtaken by the Communists and next would come Southeast Asia, then Japan. After its export markets fell into the Communist sphere, Japan would be an easy target, possibly solely through economic pressure, unless the U.S. planned to continue military occupation there indefinitely, eventually necessitating brute force.
With this entire area of Asia under Soviet control, an upset would result in the balance of power, World War II having been fought to prevent such an upset.
It could be avoided if the U.S. faced the alternatives, either to make a long-term commitment or to avoid all commitment and sacrifice and continue as if nothing were happening, as if refusing to take out fire insurance when a powerful arsonist was loose in the district.
James Marlow reviews the "five percenter" influence peddling investigation by the Senate Investigating subcommittee, with Maj. General Harry Vaughan set to testify this date. No one had accused him of breaking the law but had suggested that he had greased the skids for favors to firms and individuals seeking Government contracts. Nor had anyone suggested that the President knew of his activities in this regard.
The investigation began with a June 21 article in the New York Herald Tribune telling of a Massachusetts furniture company seeking special favors by hiring James V. Hunt for a fee to exert influence through General Vaughan. Mr. Hunt had been too ill to testify at any hearing.
Other witnesses had testified that General Vaughan had gotten Housing Expediter Tighe Woods to intervene to provide a special permit to obtain scarce building materials for the Tanforan horse racetrack at San Bruno, California, that the General had also placed pressure on an Agriculture Department employee to allow a molasses company to have more sugar than that to which it was normally entitled under sugar rationing, and that he and others had arranged to acquire freezers as gifts for First Lady Bess Truman, soon-to-be Supreme Court Chief Justice Fred Vinson, soon-to-be Secretary of Treasury John W. Snyder and two others in early 1946, arranged by John Maragon and his ties to the Verley Perfume Company, which had received favors through General Vaughan in summer, 1945 in that Mr. Maragon, as Verley's representative, had been permitted passage to Europe aboard military transport planes to purchase perfume.
Mr. Maragon, after testifying in executive session on July 28, had refused to testify the previous week about these matters, while admitting that he knew General Vaughan, but refusing to say whether he was involved with him in any activities.
Framed Edition
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