The Charlotte News

Wednesday, September 21, 1949

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Secretary of State Acheson, in a speech before the U.N. General Assembly in New York, reaffirmed his belief that East-West differences could be resolved peacefully but warned that a solution would not be quick and easy. Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Vishinsky was not present and there was no direct appeal to Russia in the conciliatory speech.

The Senate debated for the third day the foreign military aid program, with Senator Walter George of Georgia expressing criticism of the plan for its cost.

Britain's Labor Government faced a crisis as trade unions, the backbone of the Labor Party, threatened revolt against higher prices triggered by devaluation of the pound two days earlier, refusing endorsement of the measure designed to stem depletion of dollar reserves. Sir Stafford Cripps, Chancellor of the Exchequer, had warned that further wage demands by labor would largely offset the benefits achieved from devaluation.

In response to devaluation, 23 countries had devalued their currencies.

Cedric Worth, assistant to the Undersecretary of the Navy, author of the memo which spawned the Congressional investigation into whether self-interest prevailed in determining that the B-36 ought be the backbone of the long-range strategic bombing force, testified before a Navy court of inquiry that he believed that airplane manufacturer Glenn L. Martin had given him the rumor that Secretary of the Air Force Stuart Symington would quit and head a big aircraft merger to be orchestrated by Floyd Odlum of Consolidated Vultee, builder of the B-36. Mr. Worth asserted that Mr. Martin had told him that he wanted the information in the memo for Senator Millard Tydings of Maryland, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which subsequently conducted an investigation and found no corruption. Mr. Martin had denied that he instigated the memo or furnished information for it.

In Bonn, West Germany, military rule officially ended and was replaced by a high commission of the U.S., Britain, and France after new West German Chancellor Konrad Adenaur stated that he had formed a German Federal Government. The new U.S. High Commissioner was John J. McCloy—later a member of the Warren Commission, in 1964.

House members returned to Washington after a month-long vacation, with final adjournment of the session planned for around November 1. The body planned to undertake no major business during the current week. Several important measures remained for final action.

The President asked the United Steelworkers and the steel companies to agree to six more days of truce to avoid a strike while direct bargaining between the two sides took place, regarding whether the companies would bear sole responsibility for the President's fact-finding board's recommended ten-cent per hour increase in pensions and social insurance benefits. The companies, agreeing in principle to the recommendation, had balked at being solely responsible for the increase, wanting shared responsibility with the workers. The union insisted on compliance with the recommendation. The request for additional time was being considered by both sides.

In Mexico City, a fairly heavy earthquake was recorded, the epicenter of which was located 255 miles to the southwest in the Pacific, west of Acapulco.

In Boston, Henry Blackmer, 80, who had fled the country 23 years earlier to avoid testifying in the Tea Pot Dome scandal, returned from France by airplane.

In New York, the body of an undertaker, a 50-year old veteran of both world wars, who had been shot fatally in the head three times, was discovered in a room of the Edison Hotel after a sailor voluntarily confessed the killing to police. Details of the motive for the killing were not provided, but the police ruled out robbery.

In Fayetteville, N.C., the Scottish Bank of Pembroke clerk, who had admitted being the inside person aiding the robbery of the bank on July 21, was sentenced to eight years in prison, while two brothers of Lumberton who committed the robbery each received five and eight-year sentences. All pleaded guilty the previous day. An FBI agent testified that $19,000 of $20,667 of the loot was recovered.

Such a disappointment it is after we went to bat for that teller on the hunch that he was just over there in the post office looking at the Air Force brochures and happened to strike up a conversation with the gunzel who then forced him to participate in the robbery.

Near Greenwood, S.C., a car and an asphalt tanker wrecked at a crossroads, killing four persons, including two Marines, a woman and her four-year old child, and injuring two others, all in the car.

In Winston-Salem, the Methodists of Western North Carolina began a five-day session at Centenary Methodist Church.

It is not too early to begin considering what to do in the communities toward economic and social integration to avoid the rioting and looting to come in early November, 1967 and early April of 1968, to avoid seeing from the steps of that church National Guardsmen deployed to guard the streets of the city, appearing as a scene from "The Day the Earth Stood Still".

"Whereof what's past is prologue..."

In Charlotte, the City Council voted 6 to 1 to authorize application for advance of Federal funds for construction of 400 black dwelling units. The Charlotte Housing Authority had recommended 1,800 new units, 1,500 black and 300 white.

In hearings, it was contended by opponents of the proposal that low-income citizens were not living in the present two Federal projects built in 1939, that it would cost $8,000 per unit to duplicate the projects, that slums were a condition created by those who lived in them, and that supplying new housing would destroy the incentive of those living there to better themselves. The Housing Authority had countered that some of the families living in the two projects earned less than $50 per month, that those earning over the maximum income were required to leave, and that incomes climbed in nearly every instance after families entered the projects from slum areas. Speakers in opposition greatly outnumbered those favoring Government aid.

On the editorial page, "Judicial Lawmaking" finds that no matter the merits of the Justice Department's case against the A & P grocery store chain for holding a monopoly, there was need for a new set of laws on the subject written by Congress rather than by the executive and judicial branches. The Justice Department's efforts in many cases had been upheld by the Supreme Court, creating a body of law bypassing Congress.

It offers that there were deficiencies in the Sherman Act, the Clayton Act, the FTC Act, and the Robinson-Patman Act, the major antitrust legislation, as Supreme Court interpretations thereof had made it almost impossible to discern what constituted a monopoly.

Senator Joe O'Mahoney of Wyoming had recently stated that in each of the 125 basic commodities industries, 75 percent of the production was concentrated in four or fewer companies. Less than one-tenth of a percent of employers in the U.S. employed about 56 percent of industrial workers.

It urges that if the law of the land was to be trust-busting to break up monopolies, then it should be so written into the law by Congress rather than occurring through the teamwork of the Justice Department and the Supreme Court.

Are you sure that you understand how the system in this country works, with a three-branch government and a bicameral legislature?

"The Coal Dispute" tells of UMW head John L. Lewis not having made specific his demands regarding the failure of payments by Southern operators to the welfare pension fund, claiming that the expiration of the contract at the end of June had relieved them of the responsibility. Now that the mines were shut down, perhaps he would. But meanwhile, thousands of miners who had become dependent on the welfare fund would have to do without benefits for the duration of the strike. When Mr. Lewis reduced the work week to three days in the wake of the failure to negotiate a new contract by July 1, he also limited the per ton contributions by the operators to the fund and thus depleted the fund's reserves such that it could no longer afford to pay benefits.

It finds some grim justice in the sequence of events which led to the coal strike.

"Squabble over Driveways" approves Mayor Victor Shaw's appointment of a committee of five to try to solve the impasse regarding the curb-cut ordinance, sidetracked by opposing businessmen but supported by City officials who contended that the driveways to businesses were far too wide in some places, interfering with pedestrian traffic and parking space. The ordinance, it urges, ought take into account the type of business involved and then impose width limitations accordingly.

"Music, Maestro" tells of the opening of the 1949-50 Charlotte Symphony Orchestra season, with a concert at the Mint Museum this night. The orchestra was smaller than usual and the concerts would be held in a high school auditorium instead of the larger Armory-Auditorium. With a small budget, the orchestra had managed to survive through the dedication of its musicians. James Christopher Pfohl, who had conducted at Davidson College and directed a music camp at Brevard each summer, would be the new conductor.

It wishes the orchestra great success.

Drew Pearson tells of Washington social security experts being worried about what the steel dispute and coal strike regarding pension funds might do to the legislation regarding the old-age pension and social security program before Congress. If the steelworkers received their benefits paid by the employer, the concern was that they might not push so hard for higher social security benefits from the Government, leaving unorganized workers on the short end. When the miners received a welfare pension fund paid by the owners, the steelworkers then wanted a plan. Thus, there was concern that the effort would spread throughout organized labor. Mr. Pearson concludes that it would have been better for Congress to have handled the matter of increased benefits and expanded coverage in the first place.

United Steelworkers president Philip Murray and his top aides were upset with the President by his averting the steel strike for ten days and then remaining meek in the face of U.S. Steel not agreeing to the terms recommended by the President's fact-finding board.

Britain was going to receive an extra amount of ERP aid for expanding its production of manganese in northern Rhodesia, to offset Russia having stopped shipment of the element to the U.S. out of concern that it was being used for war-making stockpiles.

So many Senators had gone on vacation that leaders were having trouble getting votes on critical issues. Republicans were unavailable to defeat, for instance, giving the President a free hand on tariff adjustments.

General MacArthur wanted Japan to be included as a charter member of the proposed Far Eastern defense alliance because of its manpower and industrial resources essential to the region.

Secretary of State Acheson was telling complaining Latin American delegates to the U.N. that the International Monetary Fund had made 70 percent of all of its loans to Latin America.

Master Sgt. Jim Hendrix, who had fallen a thousand feet from an airplane over Fort Benning, Ga., and survived notwithstanding the failure of his parachute to open, had gone to the White House for the second time. The first time, he had been presented with the Congressional Medal of Honor for smashing a German machine gun nest, killing seven enemy soldiers and capturing thirteen others. On this occasion, he explained to the President that when his parachute failed to open, he began to pray, then grabbed his feet so that he would strike the earth in a v-shape. When he hit the ground, he rolled and was shaken up but had no serious injury. He believed that it was God's will that he was saved. The President readily agreed.

Joseph & Stewart Alsop find that the Senate debate on the Military Aid Program had raised the simple question as to when America would face facts, the first being that Western Europe was wholly unprepared to withstand an attack by the Red Army, resting solely on the American monopoly of the atomic bomb—a monopoly already, unknown to the country for a couple of more days, ended since August.

The second fact was that the Soviet Union was undertaking massive rearmament, with top priority given to the atomic project.

Both facts added up to a danger of war in the ensuing decade, such that the Joint Chiefs had developed a contingency plan under which Western Europe would be fortified with American arms by 1955 to withstand a Soviet attack, at which point Soviet stockpiling of the atomic bomb would likely begin. The preparation called for the U.S. to spend between eight and twelve billion dollars over five years, resulting in 45 to 50 armed European divisions which, with decisive air superiority, could hold back the Red Army until reinforcements arrived and strategic bombing could take effect.

The Joint Chiefs estimated that the Red Army could deploy 300 divisions within a month even in 1949, with substantial increases likely as rearmament continued.

Without a rearmed West Germany, according to the minority view of the Joint Chiefs, Western Europe could not withstand another war. The majority, however, favored the five-year plan of preparation as they believed that the Russian statistics of strength were deceiving, that air strength, for instance, based on intelligence gathered from the two Russian defector pilots, was overstated.

The amount of money to be expended was only an informed guess, but, if accurate, would require about two billion dollars per year. There was the danger, however, that the Congress would so reduce the program as to render it ineffective from the start. If that occurred, then the Soviets might have in the ensuing five years both atomic capability and the ability to take Europe at will, shifting the balance of power to Russia. Playing politics with MAP in the present would not be very popular at that point.

Henry C. McFayden, superintendent of the Albemarle, N.C., schools, in the third of his weekly series on child education, examines the school curriculum and how it was determined.

Curricula changed over time slowly. He believes that a curriculum which did not take into account the desires of the students was a poor one. Early in schooling, for instance, children wanted to know the nature of the world around them and so it was wise to teach of such things as the names of the birds, the size of the stars, or how the Colorado River had, through ages, cut the Grand Canyon a mile into the earth's crust.

A few years later, the student wanted to know how to act on the first date, how to regard simple rules of etiquette and to hold a fork. So it was wise to teach that the boy always walked on the outside of the sidewalk—to protect the girl from the wolves with sharper forks and greater demonstration of savoir-faire in delivering pitches to home, roaming along the roadway. Then, presumably, though he does not say so, the Mason-Bees would also be imparted.

He says that he once taught sixth and seventh grade boys arithmetic at a military school and that they wanted to be taught one day per week the answers instead to general questions. So, as he did not care much for arithmetic anyway, he obliged. Most of the boys came from broken homes and thus were essentially orphans.

They learned, for instance, why bicycle spokes did not bend, of shooting stars and snakes and submarines and football. One little boy had asked whether, if all the desks were piled up against the door of the classroom, a lion could breach the entry. That question had prompted active discussion. The answer is simple: the door had to be locked and employment of Floyd Wells avoided, as well his stories which he whispers innocently of hidden treasure.

He concludes that had the headmaster of the school known that he was teaching such matter, there would have been emitted a "cloud of purple steam". But he maintains that the answers to such questions were more important to the youngster than long division.

A letter from Manly Wade Wellman of Pinebluff thanks the newspaper for its feature regarding his book on Wade Hampton but complains that the newspaper had reported his hometown instead as Pinehurst, nearby. People were calling him complaining about the error.

A letter writer tells of his little dog "Chips" having been hit by a truck and killed on September 17. If the driver had stopped, the ten-year old dog might have been saved. He hopes that the driver of the truck would stop the next time he hit someone's dog.

A letter writer complains that movie stars set morals which were those of Sodom. Semi-naked women were exploited to draw trade in every business, doing the work of Satan. He believes that women who smoked, swore and drank were unfit to be mothers. God should pity their offspring, soaked in alcohol, nicotine and cursing before they were born. A few years previously, every woman on the streets would have been arrested for indecency and relegated to the red-light district.

But when the light turned green, what were they supposed to do?

He thanks God for the decent women of America but wondered why they were silent about present conditions. He wonders whether there was a John the Baptist in America or Jezebel had everyone on the run.

John the Baptist is off torturing the priest as Jezebel knits her socks in the night, awaiting Madonna who has yet to show or tie her bootlace.

A letter writer finds John L. Lewis and other such labor leaders to be "Communists, Bolsheviks and Reds", traitors to the Government during the war. He wants to blow them all to kingdom come. The miners, he offers, should be made to work under armed guard. Until the people did something about it, the radicalism in labor would persist. During the war, such people would have been shot. He wants to begin "cleaning house" presently.

You better call the house painters then, starting with the house of the Teamsters leader in Detroit, we suppose, give the walls a good painting.

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