The Charlotte News
Saturday, April 19, 1941
THREE EDITORIALS
Germany Must Pay for Her Crimes Before Fight Ends
While Burton Wheeler and his gang are bawling about "war aims"--which really means only their desire to see that Germany comes off scot-free if she loses the war--we think of a war aim which they won't approve but which common sense will.
It proceeds from what the Germans did to the open city of Belgrade--a wanton example of cold-blooded terrorism and murder and destruction--what they did to Rotterdam, what they have done to London and dozens of English cities besides.
This war clearly must not end until Berlin has been reduced to a rubble heap in payment for London, until the Germans have paid at least two to one for the death and ruin they have wantonly inflicted.
This is no proposal for revenge. Revenge as such is useless and indeed simply breeds more evil. But the punishment of a criminal is not useless by any means. And if human life is ever again to be safe on this planet, if there is ever again to be a chance for men to live together peacefully, Germany must have it driven through her thick ant brutal skull that the price of such criminal activity as she is now engaged in is too terrible for her to ever risk it again.
It is a grim and unpleasant task. But the hanging of a murderer is a grim and unpleasant task also. However, few people will propose to let him off scot-free merely because that is so.
The persistence of such partisanship, of such mad efforts to tear the country apart with unfounded suspicions, is the most ominous thing on view in the republic. It explicitly gives aid and comfort to the enemy. And it reminds all too pointedly of' what sent France to her destruction.
Tobey Deliberately Tries To Plant Distrust in Nation
A Senator of the United States has the right to oppose any policy of an Administration so long as that policy has not been formally adopted by the people of the nation. In general, he has the right to oppose it even after it has been adopted, though there is grave question that he has the right to oppose it when it involves the nation's defense against desperate peril.
But if we grant even that right, one thing is clear: no Senator has a right deliberately to try to breed suspicion and distrust of the Government in the minds of the people at the time of' the gravest danger. And that is precisely what Senator Tobey is busily doing.
He charges that convoy is already being used for American ships--apparently in war zones. And what proof does he offer? Why, letters from hysterical women who have sons in the navy and who "just know" that it is so. No sailor can write home what he is actually doing, where he actually is, but these mothers dream up these fantasies and Tobey offers them as sober proof of double-dealing on the part of the Government!
His record makes his motive perfectly plain. The man is one of the most narrow and spiteful partisans who has ever appeared in the Senate. For him whatever a Democratic Administration does is wrong and must be defeated even though it wrecks the nation. Party above all, is his motto always.
Site ed. note: The following article criticising Martin
Dies (pronounced "Dees") becomes even more interesting
in light of later history. Martin Dies was not ever elected to
the Senate. (Pappy O'Daniel, then Texas Governor, was elected to
fulfill the term after the death of the incumbent; he defeated
young second-term House member and New Dealer Lyndon B. Johnson
in the election held on June 28, 1941 by 110 votes. Johnson,
holding a 5,000 vote lead the day after the election, appeared to
have won initially but the results continued to creep in through
July 2 when O'Daniel was declared the winner against charges of
voter fraud.) Dies served in the House from 1931 to 1945 and
again from 1951 to 1959. He promulgated the infamous House
Un-American Activities Committee ("HUAC") in 1937,
which continued in existence through 1975. Dies was its first
chairman. HUAC's mandate was to ferret out communists within
government, business, and entertainment. Its abuses and reliance
on hearsay in ruining decent lives are legend; any public good it
did would be hard to find. It was this committee which was
responsible for the search for communists in Hollywood in 1947,
the so-called case of the "Hollywood Ten", during
which, among others, Ronald Reagan provided damning testimony
against members of the Screen Actor's Guild. It was also before
this committee in 1947 that admitted communist Whittaker Chambers
gave his accusatory testimony against Alger Hiss, former
secretary to Oliver Wendell Holmes and high ranking staff member
at the United Nations Conference in 1945. As a result, Hiss
resigned his post to become president of the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace and, after one hung jury, was later
convicted of perjury in 1950 for allegedly lying to Congress for
denying Chambers' charges of espionage for the Soviet Union. It
was the Chambers allegations about the "pumpkin papers"
involving Hiss which, of course, provided the first national
exposure to freshman Congressman and HUAC member Richard M. Nixon
and enabled Nixon thereafter to make a 27 year career out of
politics.
Martin Dies Is Definitely Not Senatorial Timber
Worst news of' the week is not that Hitler is sweeping on in Greece but that Martin Dies has announced for the United States Senate in Texas.
We call it the worst news (only half facetiously) because Texas has lately shown signs of the same kind of electoral madness North Carolina succumbed to in electing Robert Rice Reynolds to the Senate. Pass-the-Biscuits Pappy is Exhibit A in support of' the charge. Texas might elect Martin.
And that would be bad business both for Texas and the nation.
Dies makes it quite plain that what he wants to do is to transfer his activities in saving the nation to a large stage. That would be injurious.
Martin Dies may be a well-meaning man, for all we know. But he is also an exhibitionist and a hysteric, who is more interested in breath-taking "revelations" than in facts, a man who is unable to distinguish between the dangerous and the puerile--even the innocent--who sees every alien as a deadly enemy to the Republic. Above all, he has consistently demonstrated that he regards the Bill of Rights with a great impatience.
The Job of cleaning up the Fifth Columnists must be done, is being done. But all Martin Dies has contributed to it has been confusion.
In the House Martin Dies is one of 435, and so may be canceled out with fair ease. In the Senate he would be one of 96. And when one recalls the Reynoldses, Tobeys, Bilbos, etc., already present, it makes us shiver a little to think of Martin joining that company.
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