The Charlotte News

Friday, September 9, 1949

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that in the financial conference ongoing in Washington between the U.S., Britain, and Canada, Britain appeared to receive assurances of limited help from the U.S. to relieve its dollar-gold reserve shortage, but long-range aid appeared slow to develop, requiring Congressional approval on several matters. It was considered possible that the conference would end the following week without any decisive agreement on specific steps to alleviate the British crisis.

The specially combined Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees approved a 1.3 billion dollar arms aid bill, one billion of which was for Western European members of NATO, half in cash and half in authority to let contracts, plus 75 million earmarked for the Far East, with the President having full discretion over distribution of the latter amount. Only 100 million of the NATO money could be spent before the European members formed a defense council to recommend a defense plan. The remainder of the aid would go to Greece, Turkey, Iran, the Philippines, and Korea. Senators Walter George, Richard Russell and Harry F. Byrd were the only Democrats to oppose the billion-dollar aid to Western Europe.

Senator Elmer Thomas of Oklahoma said that oil imports were giving fat profits to a half dozen oil companies without benefiting either the citizens at home or abroad. He wanted the Senate to amend the House-approved Reciprocal Trade Agreements bill to limit oil imports to five percent of domestic needs.

The Navy court of inquiry continued regarding the memo drafted by Cedric Worth, assistant to the Undersecretary of the Navy, leading to a House Armed Services Committee investigation, subsequently dropped, regarding alleged improprieties in the contracting for the B-36 long-range strategic bomber. The effort was to discover whether any Navy personnel assisted Mr. Worth, a civilian employee, in drafting the memo. A Navy lieutenant testified that Representative C. B. Deane of North Carolina had asked for a memorandum of information on national defense, leading to the Worth memo. The lieutenant had been accused by Representative Carl Vinson, chairman of the Committee, of "peddling" the memo, which the lieutenant denied, saying he had never been in possession of it.

In Moscow, diplomatic observers stated that Russia might quit the U.N. if a move by Argentina succeeded to eliminate the veto power of the Big Five permanent members of the Security Council. Argentina was planning to make the motion when the U.N. again met in session starting September 20.

In Camden, N.J., Howard Unruh, arrested Tuesday for the massacre of twelve people and wounding of four others, one of whom had subsequently died, had threatened his mother with a wrench a few minutes before beginning his twenty minute rampage along the street where he lived. His mother, who was unharmed, told her brother of the incident, who then related it to a reporter. She was still present in his apartment when he began the shooting spree, starting with his next door neighbors with whom he had an argument over crossing their yard, killing three members of the family. The incident at the time was the worst mass killing in U.S. history.

One of the wounded survivors, 16, said that he wanted Mr. Unruh to receive a fair trial. Mr. Unruh had been taken to an asylum in Trenton. He would eventually be found insane and would remain institutionalized the remainder of his life, until 2009 when he died at age 88.

Service on the Missouri Pacific Railroad came to a virtual halt after the beginning of a strike which left 30,000 workers idle. The railroad normally carried about 12,000 passengers daily.

In Buffalo, N.Y., peaceful picketing resumed this date at the Bell Aircraft plant as Governor Dewey and a state mediator sought to avert future violence following two straight days of violence, in which 28 had been injured in a melee between strikers and non-strikers in the thirteen-week old strike.

In Chicago, a Roxboro, North Carolina, farmer was held without charge for allegedly swindling money from eighteen women in the Chicago area during the previous two years, including three in the previous six months. In one case, according to police, he had invited a woman to his Loop hotel room where he admired her ring and asked to borrow it so he could have a duplicate made for his mother. When he had proposed to the woman, she gave him the ring and $123. He then pawned the $450 ring for $65.

In Wake Forest, N.C., a 29-year old, armed bandit from Inspiration, Arizona, made off with about $8,500 from a branch of the Durham Bank & Trust Co., but was captured by police before he could spend any of the loot, arrested on the outskirts of Raleigh, in Youngsville, less than an hour after the robbery, four miles away from the bank. The female bank teller had been alone in the branch when the robber entered, held a pistol on her, demanding the money on threat that otherwise he would blow her brains out.

In Charlotte, Carl A. Rudisill, 65, founder and president of Carlton Yarn Mills of Cherryville, died this date in a hospital following several weeks of illness. He had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage five years earlier but had partially recovered. He was nationally known as an outstanding liberal among textile industry management, expressing concern for the welfare of his employees. He had been a liberal benefactor of religious and educational institutions, particularly Lenoir-Rhyne College, of which he was a member of the board of trustees, a position he also held at N.C. State and UNC. He had been a member of the North Carolina House from 1937-41.

In New York, Champion Spark Plugs heiress, Mrs. Marcia Stranahan Idris, was to be married the following week to Prince Youka Troubetskoy of Lithuania, brother-in-law of Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton.

In Atlantic City, all of the preliminary winners thus far in the Miss America talent and bathing suit competitions had been from west of the Mississippi. Miss Colorado, Sylvia Canaday, Miss Arizona, Jacque Mercer, and Miss California, Jone Ann Pederson, won the bathing suit preliminary competition during the previous two nights.

The preliminary winners are also provided in the talent competition, in which Miss Montana had appeared astride her nine-year old mare in a display of horsemanship, then showing a short color film of herself riding. She did not, however, place in that part of the competition. Unless she were to reach the finals, it had been determined by officials, there would be no other animals allowed in future Miss America pageants.

On the sports page, sports editor Furman Bisher begins his look at the upcoming football prospects of the Southern Conference members in the Carolinas, starting with Wake Forest and its crop of talented sophomores. Duke would follow on Saturday.

On the editorial page, "Tariff Agreements Essential" finds that at the heart of the financial talks in Washington between the U.S., Britain, and Canada was world trade, not so much the British dollar-gold reserve shortage. Thus, it was not surprising that the President had chosen the present time to fight for strengthening and further extension of the Reciprocal Trade Act, which had expired at the end of June, having been extended by the previous Congress for only a year, and weakened in the process.