The Charlotte News

TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 1938

FIVE EDITORIALS

Ingenuous Hermann

Marshal Herman Goering turns out, to our surprise, to be an exceedingly modest-spoken man. Das Hermann says he believes that the Nazi plebiscite in Austria will result in a victory for Nazism and union with Germany. Believes! Did you hear that?

Indeed, on second thought, that looks to us suspiciously like lese majeste toward the party which has so honored him, a lack of becoming faith in its methods. Das Hermann is probably the only person in the world who only believes that the Nazi plebiscite in Austria will result in a victory for Nazism and Anschluss. Everybody else knows it will. And if there was anybody who still had any lingering doubt--anybody besides Hermann--the evidence is already too plain to be controverted. That was a magnificent beginning, the arrest of 1,100 members of the Fatherland Front the first night of German occupation. It was still better when they began to take Jews and Catholic priests into"protective custody"--the kind of custody, if you don't recall, that pastor Niemoeller is in in Germany. It was practically perfect when the announcement came through that the Hapsburgs' estates were to be taken over for concentration camps. And it became utterly conclusive when, yesterday, Baron Karl Von Werkman suddenly and mysteriously "shot himself " when the Storm Troopers went to claim him.

Let Hermann speak forth more bravely. The world, let him be sure, has the most perfect confidence in the Nazi methods, which it is a pleasant part of his duties to see enforced. The world, let him be certain, hasn't the slightest doubt that every Austrian who isn't dead, in prison, or in a hospital, will vote, come the plebiscite, for Nazism and Anschluss.

In the War Zones

 

Under the great glare of Hitler's audacious seizure of Austria, Spain and China have been almost forgotten in the last week. But in both, actual bloodshed goes on at a great rate, and in both important developments have been transpiring.

In Spain, Franco, with three armies, is pressing forward from Sargossa through Teruel toward Tarragona on the Mediterranean, with a view to splitting off the great industrial storehouse of Catalonia from the Loyalist territory. Already he has taken a thousand square miles; crossed the Ebro at Alcaniz; is preparing to attack Caspe to the northwest; and, as the crow flies, stands within 50 miles of his goal. The Government is hurrying in troops to halt him, and the campaign is by no means won as yet. But if he wins it, it promises to be the end of Loyalist hopes.

But if Spain is in danger of succumbing wholly to the Italian invader, the Chinese have again halted the Japanese invader dead in his tracks, on both the Yangtze and the Yellow. The combined efforts of warships and armies in the former are a have been unable to break the deadlock. Indeed, reports are that Chinese guerrilla troops have had the best of the struggle for the last two or three days. And in the vague north, the heaviest artillery bombardments the Japs could muster have proved insufficient to dislodge Kai-Shek from his positions and to enable them to cross the Yellow River and seize the Tientsin railway.

*Senator Berry Writes

 

Senator Norris, stanchest advocate of' the administration's power policy, has changed his opinion that the Federal Trade Commission is the proper agency to investigate TVA. He is ready to join with Senator Bridges of New Hampshire and to call for an investigation by the Senate.

What induced Senator Norris to switch, we don't know, but there is a bare possibility that it was Senator Berry's letters. Senator Berry, whose marble leases in areas flooded by TVA were brought into question, has just made public a letter he wrote to Senator Norris on January 4, in which he said that the investigation of TVA by the FTC (not by Congress) would be "decidedly helpful;" and this week he wrote his Senatorial colleagues in defense of his motives for taking leases that turned out to have only a litigable value.

In fine, Senator Berry is putting up so valiant a defense of his motives in advance of any investigation at all. that Senator Norris probably concluded that the business worth being looked into by nothing less than the Senate itself.

*Tit for Tat

 

Enter total of Column 5 as Item 5, Page 1; explain in Schedule F; knit two, purl two; did you, at any time during the year? . . if answer is "yes," attach schedule required by Instruction M.

Thus, in effect, the Government's inquisition of its citizens at income tax time.Cheerfully, passively, ill-humoredly, furiously, according to their natures and perhaps their deductions, the taxpayers sit themselves down each March 15, always at the last minute, to render annual financial accountings to the tax collectors. But in one particular, their experience is altogether common. That is, the income on which they are required to pay taxes has long ago been spent.

In that respect, they are not unlike the New Deal itself. This money it is taking in was disbursed, or at least hypothecated, long ago. That being so, it might not be a bad idea for the taxpayers to ask a few questions of the tax gatherers. Offhand, we can think of these pertinent ones:

Will you be prudent with this, trying to make it last as long as it took me to earn it? Explain in Column 5.

Could you not do with a little less? Enter as Item 16.

Do you think well of me, now that I have sent you a goodly part of my store, or the contrary? Answer yes or no.

Did you, at any time during the taxable year, engage in any transactions for political gain which were not strictly necessary and in accordance with the laws of this country? Attach schedule.

Are you aware that "taxes are paid in the sweat of every man's brow who labors?" State why not?

*Distinguished Visitor  

 

Colonel Frank Knox, who comes here this evening to make the principal speech at the State Republican Convention, is no ordinary, hide bound Republican. In other than New Deal days, he would be classifiable as a Bull Moose. In fact, with the philosophy of that original Bull Moose, Roosevelt I, which is to say Teddy, he has much in common. They even were Rough Riders together, though in somewhat different capacities. Private Knox got his colonelcy later.

And Colonel Knox, again like Teddy, has no patience with the reactionary doctrines of the Grand Old Party. He is that hybrid, a lower tariff Republican. He doesn't exactly believe in tariff for revenue only, but he doesn't believe in an "excessive" tariff, and he freely denounces monopoly. So does everybody, but we have an idea this denouncer means it.

But in any case, he is a brilliant and an entertaining speaker. He sets out to be deliberately provocative--that is, to question the old truths and shibboleths and mayhap even the synthetic kinship that has bound the rank and file of the Republican Party in the South to the leaders of the Republican Party in the North. In addition to that, he is what we might call, because the term fits him, a moderate; and moderacy's a virtue, as many a good Democrat can tell you.

It's always a pleasure to the city to entertain the Republicans in their state convention, and it's a positive gratification when they have so able a speaker and so admirable a public man as Colonel Knox to address them.


Framed Edition
[Go to Links-Page by Subject] [Go to Links-Page by Date] [Go to News Framed Edition]
Links-Date -- Links-Subj.