Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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I / THE NEWBERRY SUN. NEWBERRY. S. C. irs SAME CROWD AGAIN PARIS. — It’s hot in the galleries, of the palace of Lti'iembourg. In the top gallery sit hundreds of news men — Chinese, Siamese, Greek, In dian, New Zealanders, watching a man speak far below. Newsmen from all over the world watching the peace. It’s their peace. What’s done here will affect their countries from Baluchistan to Iceland, from Saskatchewan to Samoa, and they are watching. Far below, under the klieg lights, sits Jimmy Byrnes — patient, polite Jimmy Byrnes — never leaving his seat, never failing to listen. ... A man speaks into the microphone. He’s interpreting Molotov ... in French. Another man speaks. He’s interpreting Molotov in English. . . . It takes hours. When, you wonder, will diplomacy ever become mod ernized? Diplomacy hasn’t been changed since 1815. . . . The Vienna conference when the great powers divided up Europe and brought on more wars. Paris today is depressingly the same. We invent modern methods of warfare. . . . Rock ets that may reach the moon, atomic bombs that sink na vies, germs that can destroy civilizations. . . . But the weap ons of peace never keep pace with the weapons of war . . . nor do the diplomats who wield the weapons of peace. The same crowd which failed to head off the last war is here again —even some of the same crowd which sat in at the last Paris peace conference. . . . Look at their faces. Poker faces. No life, no lift, no pas sion for the peace they are negoti ating, bored faces, preoccupied faces, bored with the endless trans lations. Bored with the whole bore dom of diplomacy. Not a man among them who lost an arm or a leg, who knows what it is to suf fer on the battlefield. These are the men who are writing the peace. Jimmy Byrnes is not bored. Po lite, patient, precise Jimmy Byrnes sits on the front row — perhaps he is too polite, too patient. . . . You feel like shouting down at Jimmy. You wish you had a telephone to reach him there, way down below. You wish you could tell him: “That was a great speech you made the other day, Jimmy, but finish it! Tell them the rest of the story. Tell them not only that the United States isn’t going to remain isolated but also that we’re going to raise hell with anyone who blocks our path to peace. Tell them that millions of Americans are fed up with all this frittering; that mil lions of Americans mean business and will back you up in anything you do.” Around the senate chamber of the palace of Luxembourg are great, gold ornaments. Woodwork carved in ornate shapes, heavily encrust ed v .n gold—remnants of the lush days of the de Medicis. ... If the French had only been smart. If they had only painted out the gold and substituted white crosses! Then perhaps the bored diplomats sitting below would remember. . . . white crosses . . . from Guadalcanal and Stalingrad, from Salerno and New Guinea, from Tobruk and the Rap- ido, from Normandy and Aachen . . . Close your eyes and you can see them. . . . Thousands of white crosses. . . . The dead speak: “We who lie here have noth ing left to give. “To all your praises we are deaf and blind. “We may not even know if you betray “The hopes we cherished for mankind.” But the diplomats below don't seem to hear. . . . Men in red plush seats, fastidious men in red plush seats, their nails polished, their cravats carefully tied. They don’t seem to hear. They are think ing about procedure and majority votes, vetoes and prestige and whether they will get out in time to take tea with Mrs. Ogden Mills. One man does hear. He sits op posite Jin mie Byrnes. ... A big, uncouth man, his hair not even parted. . . . Evatt of Australia. His cockney accent is uncultured but he dares to speak. He is the only man who comes anywhere near preach ing the Sermon on the Mount, who tells the bored men in the red plush seats that they must love their neighbors as themselves. . . . Un pleasantly Evatt steps on the toes of the big nations — tells them they have no business sabotaging the peaceful goal of others. . . . They don’t like Evatt, but they listen. Even patient, polite Jimmie Byrnes doesn’t like Evatt. But he listens. . . . Thousands of men under white crosses listen, too. * • • BARTERING OVER PEACE Clement Attlee, prime minister of Britain, speaks — the man who per formed the miracle of defeating War Leader Winston Churchill—a modest man, a sincere, earnest man. His bald head shines under the klieg lights. But it is no halo. . . . Some hours before Attlee was haggling with Byrnes over the fu ture of Germany—bartering over the peace of the world; wanting to trade off a British policy in Palestine for an American policy in Germany. IktcMome *1044*1 in WASHINGTON By Walter Shead WNU Corrnpondtnl WNU Washington Bureau, 1616 Eye St., N. W, Weak New OPA Bill Controls By ‘Psychological’ Means ENACTMENT of the new OPA ^ bill, weak as it is, may have a psychological if not an actual hand in controlling prices, this report er believes. Although it is a hodge podge of conflicting ideas, it is def initely better than nothing. As the result of this bill, for all practical purposes, Agricultural Sec. Clinton P. Anderson becomes the new boss of the food price con trol. Although the law places final authority in the three-man decon trol board, the cumbersome admin istrative process gives the secre tary exclusive authority to recom mend to the board. In all likelihood the policy of the board will be set in accordance with the pokey of Mr. Anderson. One of the secretary’s well known views is the elimination of food sub sidies. As a matter of fact, pres ent prices on foods, except some which have soared beyond all reas on and which are in short supply, are believed by the agricultural boss to reflect the ceiling prices of June 30, when OPA control went off, plus subsidy costs. Elimination of government subsidies are be lieved to account for an approxi mate 10 per cent increase on foods formerly subsidized, and, with an other 5 per cent added on, the pre diction is that most foods will level off at about a 15 per cent increase. Benefit to ‘Little Man* This brings into focus again the endless argument, is it cheaper for the general public to pay govern ment subsidies than to pay for a 10 per cent increase in food prices at the retail level? And the an swer is, it is cheaper, for the little fellow, those millions whose in come is $3,000 a year and under, be cause he doesn’t pay the subsidy in federal taxes. At any rate, the government at this writing is not paying out a dime for food subsidies on meat or dairy products. Subsidies went out with the old OPA in June. If, however, meat,and other products go back under price control, it will be a question for the agriculture boss and the decontrol board to decide whether or not to reinstitute sub sidy payments as a policy or to do something else about control. The new law ends all subsidies by April 1, 1947. The mere fact, however, that the decontrol board has the authority under the new law to reinstate price ceilings without consulting industry or without giving advance notice, we believe will act as a psychologi cal threat v. hich at least will make industry and producers a little cau tious about • boosting prices beyond reason. i Opposed to Subsidies Farm organizations and the dairy industry have been fighting for elimination of food subsidies for years, declaring that the treasury should not pay the public’s grocery bill and that farm produce should go to market and be sold at a fair price fixed by supply and demand. They now have won that fight, at least temporarily. Subsidies are off. These subsidies in two categories nave amounted to a little over three billion dollars annually. In theory farmers are supposed to make up for loss of this three billion in increased prices. But will this be true? There is every reason to believe that the cost of everything the farm er buys will rise considerably. With the old OPA gone, cost ab sorption by industry is also out and this means quick price gains for many goods to as high as 9 per cent. The farmer gained only 10 per oent by elimination of subsidies. And in addition there will be many in creases in manufacturing costs which later will be “seen in the re tail selling price . . . fencing, build ing materials, all kinds of farm ma chinery, commodities of every de scription . . . and there are many experts here who predict at least a 15 per cent rise in these things the farmer buys to equal the 15 per cent increase in food costs. Farmer May Feel Better So the question of whether the farmer is better off with or with out subsidies is still a moot ques tion and likely will be. One thing, however, the average farmer, in dependent as he is, may feel bet ter in knowing that the price he re ceives from his products, whether they are high or low prices, is not in part a government hand-out. Meanwhile, farm leaders here are getting set through these next few months for the new 80th congress, which convenes January 3. They have important measures, passed over by the old congress, which they will reintroduce for action ... a new parity definition, which is the legal basis for price support. A long range program, meas ured in the light of war experience and in the new concept of the world picture for agriculture is likely to develop. The fight to create a single farm credit agency, lost in this congress, again will be sought. PAPER, NOT RICE . . . Hearing that an estimated 1,557,000 pounds of rice are wasted annually by well- wishers at American weddings, Fred Boggio and his pretty bride, the former Bridget Maraud, requested that none of the precious grain be thrown at their ceremony. The couple is being showered with confetti as they emerge from Our Lady of Mount Carmel church in New York City, ONE-ARMED BANDITS ... and ail sorts of other gambling, including roulette, dice, cards and an up-to-the- minute race results board will flourish on the floating casino, “Lux,” a ship which will be anchored six miles off shore at Long Beach, Calif. The idea of staying out in the ocean is to evade federal and state laws prohibit ing gambling. Attorneys for Tony Cornero, owner and operator of the Lux, believe that he will be untouchable out in the deep. Speedboats will taxi patrons back and forth every five minutes. BONUS FOR BABIES ... In an effort to encourage parenthood, the British government now is paying mothers five shillings (about a dol lar in American money) per week living allowance for every baby after the first. Payment is authorized by family allowance act of May, 1945. System went into effect Aug. 6, 1946. WE WANT OUR BALL . . . Neighborhood boys picket the home of resident of Glendale, Calif., claiming that he refuses to return a base- bail they knocked into his yard. The property owner says he kept the hall after a stem of a flower was broken in his yard. Two police of ficers were on hand, trying desperately to look grim and to insure that picketing was “peaceful.” No outbreak of violence had been re- I orted when darkness caused retreat VEST-POCKET HERCULES . . . Anthony Muir, 3, son of a former Melbourne, Australia, wrestling champion, weighs in at 49 pounds in his training program for the 1960 heavyweight title. No sweets are permitted in his program of training. Anthony is given a daily training schedule with muscle building equipment designed for him. WOUNDED VETS FISH . . . With officers acting as bait boys, wounded veterans, all wheelchair patients, enjoyed fishing at Redon do Beach, Calif. Paraplegic vet, Harry Rotunni, is shown being lowered in a special hoist. U.PhiUipr RADIO CASE 180,760,492 Editor’s Note: While WlncheU (Reversing the situation, a Sunday night radio listener has John J. Anthony, the “What’s Your Problem Man,” on the stand). Q. Now, Mr. Anthony, what’s your complaint? A. I have no complaint. You’re mixed up. Q. Come, come, Mr, Anthony, there must be times when organ music and poetry let you down a bit. A. Never. Give me a poem, an organ and other people’s troubles and Tm as happy as a lark. Q. Mr. Anthony, there MUST be something bothering you like every body else. Are you happy at home? A. Certainly. Q. Well, go on in your own way and tell the radio audience why. A. On my program we only tell why people are NOT happy at home. Q. Why stay in a rut? Out with it, when did your happiness begin? In what quarrel did you first notice it? A. I tell you, there was no quar rel. Q. No fights, no quarrels, no dis. sentions? A. None. Q. You mean to tell the judges who have kindly come here tonight to get a little free publicity that noth ing has ever happened in your home that the radio audience should know abou + ? A. I do. A Judge: That’s the old familiar pattern by which so many mar riages go on the rocks, my boy. What you need is a good family quarrel. My advice to you is that you go home and try being very un happy for a change. It may make a new man of you. Q. Let’s make out you are an other case, Mr. Anthony. Say, Case 3457289. That’s the case that won’t go out and get a job and help keep the home. Now, why don’t you go to work instead of sitting around all week waiting for Sunday night to come? A. I don’t sit around all week. Q. And, furthermore, when did this woman desert you? A. What woman? Q. Please go on and tell us all about it in your own way from that point. A. What point? Q. The point where you told your father you wanted to play the ba zooka like other kids and he ordered you out of the house with the baby. A. You’re all mixed up. Q. Now, Mr. Anthony, remember what you said at my office. You said you were willing to take the four cross-eyed sisters in to live with you if the soldier would give them a name and wear shoes at the dinner table. Pull yourself to gether and speak distinctly into the mike. A. Could I read a poem to touch the heart now? Q. All the hearts in tonight’s au dience have been already touched. Dr. Spotlight, what do you think of this case? Judge Spotlight (coming out of a trance): I see no problem here at all. This man should live with the three deaf aunts until their grand father finishes his college course. It will be time enough after that to see about formal adoption. Further more, I think the boy who wants to come home from the penitentiary and beat his mother is wrong. There is something to be said for the mother’s stand that she wants no part in the beating unless assured the fight is broadcast. * • • Just Casting About Fred MacMurray has been chosen to play the male lead in “The Egg and I.” We rather looked for the part to go to “Hennery” Fonda or Walter Pidgen. » Tom Drake and Donald Duck would have sounded okay in the egg play, too. * And for the right touch, what screen actress would fit better in the female lead than Evelyn Laye. * Cary Grant plays Cole Porter in “Night and Day” and if he looks or acts like Porter then Monty Wool- ley is the image of Tad Jones and the ideal man to play the late Arthur T. Hadley would be Jimmy Durante. * • • Elmer Twitchell has one of those new house-to-auto telephones. Absentmindedly he took it in the other day for a greasr job. • • • E-valuating ‘Morale’: We have been looking into army and navy “E” awards. . . . Even if all the thousands of them were meritorious — which is an absurd - hypothesis—this system adds up to a $100,000,000 scandal. Based on a theory that such hooey boosted the workers’ morale, it cost probably 50,000,000 man hours in war-plants, 25,000 lost days for officers, diver sion of transportation facilities and waste of gas, plus some of the high est-powered hangovers ever experi enced by men in uniform. Army-navy urged these plants to throw celebrations. Some turned into week-long drunks, with whiskey and champagne suppers, imported entertainers and party girls, arrive ing in private cars and chartered planes. All this was legally deducti ble for income tax purposes, chargeable against production costs and valid accounting in contract renegotiation. Officers were assigned, often traveling hundreds and thousands of miles, taking several weeks" on a job, all on government pay and travel and subsistence expenses. One public relations officer was al ways sent on ahead, to whip up the show. Higher ones came on later, to make stuffy speeches, ride in parades and souse up With the hap py executives and their ladies. There was usually a shutdown. All hands were guests at shows and blowouts, in hotels, country clubs, local theatres taken over. Besides, there were more exclusive to-dos for officers and corporation officials, “guardian angels” and other politi cians, with costly souvenirs handed out — everything charged as legiti mate expense. PROs were briefed by higher of ficers to encourage as much hoopla as the plants could swing. Some of them did practically no other work. The signal corps, wjth only about a half-dozen HQ posts in the country, traveled its advance agents countless miles. Often the plants paid these men’s expenses and those of higher officers, al though the army did, too, doubling the cost to the taxpayer. It was one of the sweetest rack ets of the conflict to exterminate the enemy by good old Yankee horse-sense and can-do. A triumph of E-bombs! The Hollywood gin rummy swindle was turned up by a cub reporter (Los Angles Examiner) on his first assignment. The pa per had a tip that Michael Mac- Dougall, the sleuth who special izes in such things, was in ' town. . . . Baker Conrad was sent on this thin tip. ... He ran into some members of a club he thought might be involved. They were talking out loud- spilling names and dll—on the story the youngster wasn’t even sure was cooking. . . . He got an earful and ran to a phone. . . . The first newsbreak said only that three sharpers had taken Hollywood big boys — no names mentioned. . . . An hour after the edition hit the street, three heavy winners had en gaged a high-priced lawyer to “protect their interests.” The prisoner in the dark Gestapo dungeon in Berlin was tall, gaunt Rudolf Diels, founder of the Gestapo in the first turbulent days of the Nazi regime. had said "no” to Adolf when the fuehrer ordered him to liquidate an old pal who had outlived his usefulness to the swas tika-gang. Now, Rudolf sat in his cell, awaiting the hangman—by or der of Hitler, who did not like peo ple who dared to say “no.” Standing before Diels was med al-dripping Hermann Goering. “I order you to divorce my sister,” growled Goering. “Get out of her life. We cannot have a man in our family hung!” Diels, a cool character, shrugged his shoulders, told Goering where to go. Circumstances — too long and in volved to relate here—saved Diels from the hangman. Today, sitting in a villa in Nuernberg, he sup plies the prosecution with valuable information against the major war criminals. Among his frequent vis itors was Capt. Harry N. Sperber, chief German interpreter at the trials. “Strange,” mused Diels to Harry, a sardonic smile on his sallow, sabre-slashed face. “It looks as if —after all—dear Hermann will have a man in the family hung! . . . Him self!” THE INCREDIBLE Count that day lost Beyond your wails That sees no headline “Russia Assails.” * * • i Twenty-six ball players have just met with big league club own ers on a new deal including better wages, pensions, etc. ♦ There was pride in Casey’s manner As he came up to the plate— There was firmness in his bearing As he asked a higher rate. “Dark of the Moon” has gone home, to the Smoky mountains, where it was written, about its own people, by Howard Richardson and William Barney. ... It was staged at the Community theatre, in Asheville, N. C. . . , That is 15 miles from where the authors found the ballad of Barbara Allen, theme of their play. . . . Viscount Las- celles, nephew of King George VI of England, has a play he wrote making the Broadway cfific* rounds.