* forecast Wilmington and vicinity: Partly cloudy weather Friday; no important change in temperature. '' V .;." ESTABLISHED 1867 greater Prosperity! j&VYA T CAMP DA VIS MEANS MORE MONEY ^iiGreater prosperity over Z we normally expect” was ^dieted yesterday br John H. v»rrell, secretary of the Cham f , Commerce and city in r,.trial agent, when the news S It the U. S. Navy def tly will take over Camp Davis* it means that more dollars ,, \e coming into Wilming 0d that, of necessity, aU local merchants, as weU I' • Thursday, 9.5 feet. RAILROAD STRIKE THREAT FADES OUT President To Appoint Fact Finding Panel In Rail Wage Dispute Shortly WASHINGTON, March 7—(JP)— The threat of a railroad strike on Monday faded away Thursday as President Truman invoked the fact-finding machinery in that in dustry which he proposes for others. The White House announced that the President will appoint a fact finding panel in the rail wage dis pute “very shortly.” Under the Railway Mediation act, this will automatically bar a strike for 30 to 60 days. In Committee Mr. Truman proposed last year that Congress set up similar ma chinery for other industries. In stead the House passed a more stringent strike-control bill by Rep. n_/tj e rt \ t« t legislation Is still in the committee stage. The Brotherhoods of Railroad Trainmen and of Locomotiye Engl, heers had scheduled a progressive strike against 384 railroads and ter minals to start at 6 a.m. Monday. Law-Abiding After the White House announce ment, however, A. F. Whitney, president of the trainmen, said in See RAILROAD on Page Three WALLACElEADY FOR ’BERRY FETE Governors Of North And South Carolina Plan To Attend WALLACE, March 7. —Prepara tions are on in full swing for North Carolina’s greatest event, ‘‘The Sixth Annual North Carolina Strawberry Festival,” which is being revived after victory and will be staged here in Wallace for 10 big days, May 1 through May 11. Festival headquarters over the Wallace Drug store is a bee-hive of activity as plans are being made and executed to bring to this section, the greatest entertainment and largest crowd of visitors ever assembled at any celebration. Governor’s Day Wallace streets and store fronts will be gaily decorated and the opening day will be marked by a spectacular street parade featur ing bands, marchers, pretty girls. floats, clowns ana numerous eye catching attractions. There wil be “Governor’s Day,” when Gov ernor R. Gregg Cherry will mee the Governor of South Carolina here to enjoy the Festival. There will also be Governor; from several other states. Then will also be a “Mayor’s Day,” dur ing the Festival, when Mayor; from almost all the towns an< cities in North Carolina will con vene here as the guests of Mayo; Aubrey Harrell, founder of th( Festival which has become an in stitution through-out the land. See FESTIVAL On Page Three Today and Tomorrow by WALTER LIPPMANN Mr. Churchill believes that a set tlement with the Soviet Union is possible only if we deal with her by uniting America with Britain to form a combined power through - out the world. There is nothing, he says, that “our Russian friends and allies admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for y which they have less respect than for military weakness.” By com ' lining our power we would, he } argues “possess so formidable, a i superiority as "to impose effective • ; deterrents” against ‘‘the indefinite expansion of their power and doc trines.” If we do this, this is to say, if we hold the Russians in check by presenting them with a combined Anglo-American front, the United Nations will have a chance to develop. This is Mr. Churchill’s thesis. If ever there was a man who held earned the right to be listened to with the utmost seriousness, it is Winston Churchill talking on thp basic issues of war and peace. He will be listened to, and his speech may well mark the beginning oJ one of the great debates of moderr times. See LIPPMAN on Page Three U.S. CALLSONRUSSIA TO GET TROOPS OUT OF IRAN I ___ Subcommittee Shows Real Interest” In Washing ton Hearings $1,500,000 MEASURE Colonel Gillette Believes Appropriations Will Be Approved Wilmington’s bid to get the Cape Fear river channel wid ened and deepened received new strength from two impor tant sources yesterday. Senator Josiah Bailey of North Carolina, in a personal appearance before a Senate ap propriations subcommittee, urged that a $1,500,000 appropriation for the project be re-inserted into the War department’s civil functions biU. He said the -subcommittee “show ed real interest” and that the out look on the whole is “very prom ising”. Recommended By Engineers Already recommended by U. S Army engineers and approved by congress, the project was recently eliminated from the civil functions bill in a drastic “economy” slash. The project, divided into three sections is as follows: (1) Deepening the cape .rear channel to 32 feet and lengthening the southerly approach to the an chorage basin from 1,500 to 4,500 feet, at a cost of $790,000. Widening Channel (2) Widening the 3U-foot channel between the inner end of the ocean bar channel and Wilmington from 300 to 400 feet and the turning basin from 600 to 800 feet, plus a channel 12 feet, deep and 100 feel wide from the eastern’ entrance of the inland waterway,to connection with the main channel three miles above, at a cost of $075,000. (3) Construction ot a channel 25 feet deep and 200 feet wide in the northeast Cape Fear river, extend ing from Hilton bridge to and in cluding a ‘turning basin 600 fe'ef wide one and a fourth miles above, at a cost of $73,000. Senator Bailey s&id the Subcom mittee completed, .its. .hearings Thursday afternoon and will "mark up’’ the bid irr a few days. Colonel Gillette Predicts Colonel George W. Gillette, chief of U. S. Army Engineers of this district, provided the other source See BAILEY on Page Three IFIRE DESTROYS CITY BLOCK OF BUILDINGS AT FUQUAY SPRINGS FUQUAY SPRINGS, March 7. —OP)— An early afternoon blaze, fanned by strong winds, Thursday leveled virtually an entire city block of Fuquay Springs’ business area, caus ing damage tentatively estimat ed at $150,000. The blaze, cause of which had not been determined, complete | ly destroyed the main store and adjacent warehouse of the Proctor-Barbour company, a general supply concern. Mayor W. F. Rogers said the fire apparently started in the trac tor repair department of the company. I Wilmington-New Hanover AirportAuthority Gets Down To Busii 1 i The name for the new guiding board f^r the highly promising airport here is mouth-filling. But all portens are the airport will live up to its rather imposing name. Anyway, picture above is the first formal meeting of the new board. From left to right, or clock-wise around the board table -1 _ are Lenox Cooper, Hargrove Bellamy, Addison Hewlett, Sr., ex officio adviser, Albert Perry, chairman, ’Harry Gardner, and Hamilton Hicks, secretary.—STAB STAFF PHOTO BY PETE KNIGHT. - -- GOVERNMENT GETS PHONE SETTLEMENT Walk-Out Averted After Agreement Reached On Wage Pattern WASHINGTON, March 7—(IP)— The long-threatened nationwide telephone strike definitely was called off Thursday. Operators already were leaving their switchboards and picket lines were forming at scattered points when the union ordered the walk out cancelled 25 minutes befors the 6. a. m. deadline. An agree ment on a new wage formula grant ing $5 to $8 increases to some 250, 000 phone workers had been reach ed shortly under all-night pressure by the U. S. Conciliation Service. Pattern Contract The executive board of the Na tional Federation of Telephone Workers, independent, ordered the strike cancelled five minutes aftei a “pattern” contract had beer signed with the American Tele phone and Telegraph company by its long lines affiliate. The walkout had been called by the long lines unit and 16 other affiliated unions. Thirty-four oth er NFTW units had been instruct ed to observe picket lines. Lines Form Delayed receipt of the union’s notice, or premature walkouts, caused -service interruptions in Washington, Philadelphia, Cleve land, Oklahoma City and parts oi Maryland, Texas and Michigan. Picket lines were set up in several cities. A. T. & T. officials in New York said a survey showed that service was normal throughout the coun try by 9 a. m. To February 1 Edgar L. Warren, chief of the U. S. Conciliation Service, called the new wage rates a national pattern in his announcement ol the settlement. The increases will dcte back to February 1, 1946, and the rates will remain in effect until March 6, 1947. The long lines wage agreement, providing some $6,800,000 a year in pay increases to more than 19,000 See GOVERNMENT on Page Three AGE OF SPEED! Airport Authority Sets Fast Opening Pace Here I Bluethenthal Field, In “Good Condition”, Expected To Be Turned Over To Group Early Next Week The Wilmington-New Hanover Airport authority open ed full throttle yesterday in its campaign to make Bluethen thal airfield the outstanding airport of the South. In its second meeting since its creation by the New Hanover County Board of Commissioners on Wednesday, --— i the authority telephoned hieh Arnrv CHURCHES WARNED AGAINST HOLY WAR Bishop Oxnan Sounds Key note At Closing Session Of Council COLUMBUS, O., March 7.—(&)— A special post-war policy meeting of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America closed Thurs day on a keynote warning against churches being led into a “holy war” against either capitalism or communism. Bishop O. Bromley Oxnam, coun cil president and head of the New York area of the Methodist church, told the. final session of the three day gathering of 500 delegates from the 25 Protestant churches com posing the council: Clash of Arms “Men who would lead the church into ‘holy war’ are blind to the fact that the massing of force for the destruction of a movement may be planned as the force of idea, but such effort soon descends to force that is physical, and the castigation of words becomes the clash of arms.” Bishop Oxnam’s plea came after three days which included a speech by President Truman urging a See CHURCHES on Page Three --— Along The Cape Fear NO TABOO TODAY—Despite ar old newspaper taboo against the practice, we are whistling while we work today. We’re whistling because'swe’re happy. And we hope our notes are in unison with some other whistling, that’s been going on- in Wilmington for 68 y®ar® Yes, we’ve found out all about the Old ACL Whistle, and from whal we have found out the old gentle man should win the presidency oi the BLEW (Blow Loud, Emancipat ed Whistles) society without s hitch. THE FULL STORY — The Ole ACL Whistle has been blowing se ven times per day «Jx d-M P« week since 1878 — anc* ^ of breath yet. The man who ma^eT-the.,^1S“e was Captain Richard Bradley Re gister who, in his early years, wa. I machinist at the ACL shop plant a. made it by hand — surely on* S thTgreatesf“by hand” creation, in this country. And we doubt that even he real ized what an amazing, enduring creature he was creating. Captain Register died in 1942, at the age of 85, and he left behind him a small but durable monument which will bear testimony to his manual skill for years and years to come. OUR HEROES—The men we’re ; indebted to for the full information about our “champ” are Alan B. Love, assistant editor of the Atlan tic Coast Line News, and Captain Charles Register who is, you might guess, the son of old Captain Dick Register. Mr. Love dug through his oldest files and finally came upon the full story, and Captain Charles verified it by memory. We want to thank all you other folks for the bits of data you sent in about the old whistle, too. It always gives us a warm feeling to See CAPE FEAR on Page Three U1C auuiuilbj officials in Atlanta, Ga., in an effort to get Bluethenthal field put int< first class condition and turneo over to the county and the authori ty by March 13. “Early Next Week" The high Army officials promised the authority “highest priority’’ in the matter and said they would come to Wilmington “early next week’’ to get the project moving. “We want the field okayed by the Civil Aeronautics Administra tjon and turned over to us by March 13,” Hamilton Hicks, U. S Army engineer and secretary of the Authority, said yesterday, ‘if al all possible. $11,000,000 Airport “Because then, when we go to the CAA meeting in Raleigh on March 13 to discuss airport opera tion and maintenance, we’ll have a complete $11,000,000 airport to lay on the discussion table.” The entire airport authority, consisting of Albert Perry, chair man, Hicks, Harry Gardner, Lenox Cooper, and Hargrove Bellamy, will attend the Raleigh meeting. John H. Farrell, secretary of the Chamber of Commerce and city industrial agent, plans to go with the group. In their meeting yesterday, the Authority members talked over the matters of a manager and a “name” with Addison Hewlett, chairman of the county commis sioners and ex-officio advisor to the authority. Discuss Manager The group said, it had already re ceived a number of inquiries con cerning the manager’s job. “We don’t want to be too hasty, however, about hiring one,” chair man Perry said. “We want a thoroughly experienced man whe not only knows the airport business See AIRPORT On Page Three WAIT, The Age-Old Problem And It Tries Patience Of Job-Seekers At USES “How long do I have to wait?” is a common question of applicants for new and con tinued claims, and those seek ing jobs at the United States Employment Service, Harold M. Hinkle, manager said yes terday. “Time required to answer some of these questions is from five to 15 minutes, depending upon whether the applicant is new or continued,” Hinkle said. Applicant Irritated "The irritated applicant often f has to be referred to about 25 different people, before his question is satisfactorily an swered,” the manager said. *‘I have waited here all day,” is an example of some plug lines the office gets, and when the applicant goes out and re turns for further information, he often dashe^up with ‘‘about that job, will I get it here, or do you want the man to see me?”. See WAIT On Page Three CITY CONSIDERING SUNSET PURCHASE Nichols Says No Definite Conclusions Reached On Water Proposal The City of Wilmington’s pro posal to purchase the Sunset com pany, which supplies Water to Sunset park, is “still under con sideration,” City Manager A. C. Nichols revealed last night. Nichols and W. F. Evans, Jr., head of the city’s Water depart ment, who have been studying the proposal for some time, have not reached “any definite conclu sions,” Nichols said. No Obligation Nor is the city under any obliga. tion to purchase the company and its facilities. According t0 a bul letin received from Ha'rry Me Mullan, attorney general of North Carolina, there is no North Carolina statute which requires a munici pality to purchase a privately own ed water system operating within the city limits, buf it would have authority to do so if it were found proper .to make such a purchase. City Attorney W. B. Campbell confirmed MoMullan’s statement last night. No Predictions Nichols said he cannot make any predictions as to when the negotia tions with the Sunset company will be completed or as to whether the city ever will make the pur chase. TOBACCO BOARD BACKS PROPOSED BRITISH WANS RICHMOND, Va., March 7— (IP)—The board of governors of the Tobacco Association of the United States, in mid-winter session here, Thursday night unanimously adopted recom mendations that the United States loan Great Britain the proposed $3,750,000,000 and that the Office of Price Administra tion raise the ceiling price on cigarettes. Resolutions asking the fed eral government to negotiate for the removal of trade bar riers and tariff discrimination now in force in several foreign countries affecting the export of American tobacco, also were adopted by the board. Soviet Action Held Contrary To Agreement Note On Red Activities In Manchuria Not Ready For Publication ASK QUICK REPLY ' State Department “Trusts’* Russia Will Abide By Tehran Accgrd WASHINGTON, March 7^ (IP)—The United State* Thursday night called upon Russia to live up to its agree ments and get out of Iran immediately. The State department made public the note delivered to !®>s cow Wednesday. It said that the United States "can not remain in different”' to the Soviet decisioc to keep troops in Iran, And it ask ed an answer "promptly." In the 1,000-word document, the United States declared that the RUssian action was contrary to th* assurances of the American-British Soviet declaration of Tehran in 1943, and expressed "earnest hope” that the Soviet Union would with draw all forces immediately from Iran. “Promote Confidence” Such a withdrawal, the U. S. note said, would “promote the internat ional confidence which is necessary for peaceful progress among the peoples of all nations.” It closed with a request that the Soviet Union notify the U. S. promptly of its decision on the mat ter and said this country hoped that verdict would “be in accord See SOVIET on Page Three WAGE“PATTERNS” NOT “CEILINGS” Stabilization Board Says Such Agreements Are Not Raise Rates WASHINGTON, March 7—W— The National Wage Stabilization board ruled Thursday' that wage increase “patterns,” established under the administration’s new wage-price policy, represented neither a "floor’’ nor a “ceiling” on pay raises. At the same time, in a "guiding statement of policy” issued: over protests from Labor members, the board announced that, although no i patterns technically could be set 1 after Feb. 14, it would stress indus try relationships in setting the equivalent of patterns after that date. Wage Pattern (A “wage pattern,” under term* of the wage-price policy, is general application within an industry or a locality of wage increases made between V-J Day and Feb. 14, 1948—either voluntarily or as a re ...it awards, fact finding recommendations, or other governmental proposals.) Today’s policy statement wa« made to assist labor and manage ment in the “completion of collec tive bargaining and in the filing of wage increase applications." It sets up eight major principle! which the beard will follow in ap. See PATTERNS on Page Three And So Tq Bed.. Yesterday an out-of-town resident, unfamiliar with the city’s parking meters, stopped a local citizen on Front street. "Would you show me how to work this thing?" he asked. "Certainly,” said the prac ticed in-towuer. He showed the man the slot to drop the nickel in and ex plained at length the inner workings of the meter. The out-of-towner thanked him profusely, dropped in the nickel, watched the time-scale pop up, got into his car, and drove away. "Be back in an hour," he shouted through the open win dow.