August 8, 1947
Los Angeles
ACLU representative A.L. Wirin, an attorney, is asking Superior Judge Henry M. Willis to rule that those recent “crime crusher” street blockades are unconstitutional and must be stopped. The search and seizure of property belonging to people who just happen to be driving through a blockaded intersection is, Wirin states, “intolerable and unreasonable.”
Police claim a decrease of 18.2 percent in reported crimes in the blockades sections of the city, and seek to continue the practice. In an affidavit filed at the Court, Assistant Chief of Police Joseph Reed insisted that only cars containing “suspicious characters” were being searched, and that for law-abiding citizens, the stop was no more inconvenient than a traffic light. A side issue is the fact that public funds are being used to finance the blockades.
Judge Willis took the case under submission.
Suggested reading: In Defense of American Liberties: A History of the ACLU
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Two Years of Peace Haven’t
Healed the Wounds of War
Masses Grope
for Guidance
Amid Ruins
At this hour, two years
ago, World War II was
nearing its atomic finish.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
lay dying. Allied forces
stood at Japan’s door and
delivered their final chal-
lenge. In a few days—Aug.
14 to be exact—Japan col-
lapsed in the manner of
Germany months before.
+ + +
The Times runs a picture page, taking stock of changes since the end of the war. In Nijmegen, Holland, townspeople adopt the graves of men from the 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions who died taking Nijmegen Bridge.
In Essen, Germany, mothers struggle to feed their children one meal a day. At the current rate, it will take 130 years to rebuild Essen, The Times says. Elsewhere, women at the Dachau war trials hide their faces from news photographers.
On Corregidor, the jungle is overgrowing military emplacements. “The rock-strewn tunnels still hold bones of Americans,” The Times says.
And then there’s Paris, where Christian Dior is unveiling what will become known as his “New Look,” creating a terrible scandal not only because his creations use so much fabric—but because his model’s dress is unbuttoned to the waist, revealing a pink brassiere.
“The audience of sophisticates—buyers and fashion writers, many from the United States—gasped. Unbelievers, they thought the mannequin had forgotten to button up. But she tossed her head and swung slowly around."
“The men like it, you know,” a Dior saleswoman whispered to the dubious.
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