The Charlotte News

Saturday, March 4, 1950

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that John L. Lewis had reached agreement with a major group of coal operators the previous night and details of the compromise were being rushed to print by lawyers, effectively ending the coal strike. Only the Southern operators had yet to come to terms. The details of the agreement were not yet disclosed but it was said that the miners had acquired most but not all of their demands. Coal mining operations were expected to resume Monday.

In response to the resolution of the strike, both houses of Congress called off efforts to formulate a bill, in response to the President's urging, to authorize seizure of the coal industry. Some efforts were continuing in the Senate to draft a bill for an emergency. The President said that he would now only press for legislation to have a study commission assess the ills of the coal industry, and Congressional efforts in that regard had begun.

In Paris, Communist Party members of the National Assembly used fists, filibuster, and sit-down strikes on the floor to try to block a measure which would authorize use of Government troops to unload ships containing military cargoes. The Assembly, however, finally placed a gag on debate of the measure. The legislation was designed to meet threatened strikes against unloading of U.S. arms shipments for France as a member of NATO. Critics of the arms shipments believed it was bringing the country closer to war with Russia.

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 8 to 1 to approve a bill, sponsored by Senator Karl Mundt of South Dakota, requiring registration of Communist and Communist-front organizations. Senator William Langer of North Dakota was the only vote against the measure. The bill would now go to the Senate. It defined Communism as a conspiracy to overthrow the Government and set up a dictatorship in its stead. The bill also would bar Communists from holding Government jobs and obtaining passport visas.

The State Department refused to acquiesce to a request by the Hungarian Government that it reduce further its legation staff in Budapest, which the State Department said it had already reduced in response to Hungarian Government harassment of staff. The Hungarian request was motivated by the charges of spying by the legation staff brought out during the trial of American businessman Robert Vogeler, convicted of spying and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. The State Department had labeled the charges against Mr. Vogeler and the legation as "preposterous falsehoods".

Columnist Bruce Barton finds that while Americans romanticized too much about everything from love to hot dogs, they should be deadly serious about war. He suggests that World Wars I and II actually had been III and IV, the first having been the European "Seven Years War", which included the French and Indian War in America, resulting, with British assistance, in exclusion of the French from American shores. The second great war was the American Revolution in this country, which, with French help, resulted in exclusion of the British.

He finds that the last profitable wars ever to be waged were the Mexican-American War, acquiring the American Southwest and California, and the British war in South Africa, acquiring diamond and gold mines.

The Spanish-American War of 1898 had been fought on the principle of the "devil theory", enunciated by historian Charles Beard, that when another country was doing bad things, it became the duty of the good country to fight them. The Spanish had been perceived as doing bad things in Cuba. The outcome was acquisition of the Philippines, Puerto Rico and a general mortgage on Cuba. But these islands had masses of poor people for which the country then became responsible, and so the victory had cost the country billions of dollars, an expense continuing into 1950.

He regards, on this analysis, World Wars III and IV to be wars, practically speaking, which no side had won. The British, French and Germans had only been shooting at each other as potential trade customers, mutually harming their economies. The U.S. was then left holding the bag to pay for restoration of that trade and self-sustaining economies in Europe, to achieve again world balance.

World War V, if it were to occur, he posits, would wipe out all global progress of the prior 150 years and throw Russia back into barbarism.

He concludes that while such thoughts were unpopular, he preferred to speak of a war which it was wise to avoid, as it was one which the country would not lose but also could not possibly win.

In Detroit, police prepared to dig up the basement floor of a suburban home of a bride who had married a "lonely hearts" bridegroom from Texas, who had disappeared a year earlier. The search was designed to locate the remains of the groom, as neighbors reported large pieces of concrete having been carried by the daughters of the bride from the basement to a barn behind the house and, according to the woman's previous second husband, a pile of lumber covered a basement hole around which a large dog was chained.

In Raleigh, a member of the State Utilities Commission, who had resigned, disputed Governor Kerr Scott's criticism of the Commission for being too slow to extend telephone and electrical service to rural areas, saying that its action would have been no faster regardless of who was Governor. The member was the cousin of former State Treasurer Charles Johnson who had run against Mr. Scott in the gubernatorial primary, and Mr. Scott had charged that this relation had led to a conflict of interest causing the slowdown. The Governor meanwhile appointed a replacement member who was sworn in the previous Wednesday after declaring allegiance to the Governor prior to the ceremony.

Duke Power Co. was reported to have accepted a compromise proposal for appointment of fact-finding board members to avert a threatened strike of bus drivers in six cities served by Duke buses. The Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen representing the drivers was still considering the proposal submitted by the mayors of the six affected cities.

Frigid weather continued in the Northeast, with 17 below zero recorded in Albany, N.Y., and in points in Maine and Michigan, with the mercury reaching 14 in New York, 15 in Pittsburgh, and 18 in Roanoke, Va., while most of the rest of the country, including Billings, Mont., enjoyed spring-like weather.

Part of chapter ten of The Greatest Story Ever Told appears on the page as part of the serialization by The News of the book published the previous year.

On the editorial page, "Quibbling Over Details" addresses the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, representing the Duke Power Co. bus drivers, being at odds thus far with management regarding determination of how a 60-day fact-finding board would be appointed. It finds the dispute to be minor in that both sides would have ample opportunity to contest the findings after the board issued its report, neither side having bound itself to the findings and recommendations. It hopes that both sides could reach agreement and not let this trivial objection intercede to the public's disadvantage in the six cities, including Charlotte, which depended on Duke buses for public transportation.