The Chronicle-star combined with the Moss Point advertiser., 1948-01-02
Outstanding At News Stories

lists. There vas hell and fury
about this provision. Many unions
first announced they wouldn't
comply. And yet, within four
months of the date the law be-
came effective, most of the un-
ions had fully complied.
4. TEXAS CITY EXPLOSION.
1t was a quiet news day in April.
In the war-swollen area known as
Texas City, Tex, dock workers
toiled under the warm April sun.
Suddenly a terrific explosion was
heard for miles around. A nj
trate-loaded French freighter was
ished. A chain of explosions was
obliterated. It's entire crew per-
set off, and before it was all over
much of the boom industrial
city was destroyed. Hundreds
died. Thousands were injured,
millions of dollars lost. A former
war correspondent, flying over
the flaming city, likened it to
Nagasaki, Japan, victim of the
second atom bomb.
S. U. S. AID TO EUROPE, Edi-
tors picked this heart-warming
but controversial story as num-
Der five. 1t could have been
first. Tied up in it was not only
a story of a great nations mer-
cy but the economy and cost of
living of an inflated but well-fed
nation. In it was the Marshall
plan to feed hungry Europe there
by to stop encroachments of Rus
STA. 1t had all the clements
mercy, politics and danger. 4
6. WAR CONTRACTS INVES-
TIGATED. Uncle Sam, like any
person who had undergone great
expense, was checking back on
the cost of war. Into the early
picture stepped plane maker How
ard Hughes. Then his press
agent, plump and babyish looking
Johnny Meyer, followed almost in
turn by a retired airforce gen.
eral, Bennett Meyers. The Con-
gressional investigators and their
witnesses heard everything from
big business deals to nightclub
adventures to scandals and it was
one field day after another for
headline writers and photograph
ers.
Z. midas FREEDOM. A new
day, some of the hours in it shad-
ed with blood, dawned for long
troubled India. India's 400, 0O0,-
600 people shed their hated role
of subject peoples in August. A
new chamber of two independent
dominions began.
8. ELIZABETH'S MARRIAGE.
Princess Elizabeth wed her Prince
amid glittering pageantry as
Britain, harassed and hungry,
eheered the great romantic tidbit
of British life. 1t was a real
royal love match, we were told,
and the British loved it all.
9. PALESTINE TROUBLES. AS
the old year flickered, blood was
being spilled in the Holy Land.
The partition of Palestine, design
ed to give a homeland to Jews,
led the Arabs to swear a Holy
War. 1t was the biggest single
work of the hoped-for United
Nations.
10. FLORIDA'S HURRICANE.
Everyone knew one of the worst
hurricanes in Florida's history
was approaching. Years of plan
ming and study braced the people
for the shock. But when it came
it landed feinting, jabbing and
Jolting like Joe Lewis fighting an
outclassed opponent, spreading
death and millions of dollars of
property damage, not only in Flo
rida but along the Gulf Coast and
into New Orleans.
Plane crashes, tornadoes and
sports fell among the also-rans
in the editors selections of the
biggest news stories but some
came out from an eerie occurrence
that could get headlines perhaps
only in America. It was the
story of the Flying Saucers,
round, high-speed mysterious OBJ
jeets in the heavens. They were
day and night; they roamed
over the United States from June
% to July IL, and they stopped
as suddenly as they began-with-
out explanation. except as an il
of people who are still wor-
ried about a coming war in the
air. These editors perhaps re-
garded the news of the year rs
a Flying Saucer. It truly a