The Charlotte News

Wednesday, September 20, 1939

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: Hogs in Chicago pronounced themselves Galahad when looking at the actions of Hitler. One might add that during this period of history, in fact, Pigs did fly, too.

One can almost see the limbs of the typeface bending and smoking on Cash's Underwood as "Standard Model" drew toward rapid conclusion.

And as to the "mystery weapon" which Hitler promised, there were initially the V-1 and V-2 rockets, that which we now call "conventional" weapons of mass destruction, but, as Einstein warned FDR in 1939, to give rise to the Manhattan Project in the United States, there was in the works something else, something which, indeed, Hollywood would make much with over the next 60 years. So, too, sadly, would others. Perhaps, it is worth consideration that every time any country builds a nuclear warhead, somewhere in the downrange realms of the Deil, Hitler, regaling his Panurge with his grand feats of military daring and triumph, is bound to be grinning that stupid little toothless, piggish grin he had.

Standard Model

Mr. A. Hitler Says His Piece All Over Again

Adolf Hitler's speech at Danzig yesterday was merely another move in the war of nerves which he is still trying to wage--a war designed to confuse, to terrorize, and cajole his opponents into surrendering without a fight.

It was familiar stuff.

He said that all he wanted was "lasting peace." It is exactly what he said he wanted when he re-occupied the Rhineland, when he took over the Saar after the plebiscite: when he annexed Austria: at Nuremberg last August, at Godesburg, at the Sportspalast, and at Munich last September: when he annexed what remained of Czecho-Slovakia in March of this year: when he grabbed Memel.

And in that he intimated what he no longer quite had the face to say, that this was the last territorial demand he would make in Europe. He had said that at least three times already, notably in the case of Czechoslovakia.

He said he had no quarrel with France. He said that about Poland many times before Munich, at Munich itself, and repeated it at least twice this year. In Mein Kampf, (p. 902, Reynal & Hitchcock edition) he wrote: "... We must at last become entirely clear about this: the German people's irreconcilable mortal enemy is and remains (sic) France." And again (p. 978, ibid.): "As long as the internal conflict between Germany and France is carried on only in the form of the German defensive (sic) against French attack (sic), it will never be decided..."

He told us that Germans had been brutally persecuted in Poland, that the Poles had been cutting off hands and feet, gouging out eyes. He told us the same thing of Czechoslovakia last September. In neither case has the claim been borne out in any degree by disinterested observers, such as our American reporters and our American diplomats.

He told us that the Poles could no longer keep order and peace in their state, and that therefore he carried war to it, again the same thing he told us of Czechoslovakia. It is well established by reportorial and diplomatic testimony that such disorder as existed was deliberately planted by his own agents; it is clearly manifest that it is an invariable part of his technique to create disorders in the territory of his intended victims by way of setting up this excuse.

He said that the Poles had no "ethnic" right to exist as a state, because they were not "culturally determined." Polish culture is older than that which formerly existed in Germany and which has now succumbed to the new barbarism. And in scale, quite as distinguished. It is simply a way of saying that no state has a right to exist which cannot overmatch his military might. That is the principle on which Atilla, Genseric, Theodoric, Genghis, Tamerlane--all the great barbarian conquerors--have acted.

He portrayed himself as a chivalrous soul, grieving over the fate of the poor French poilus, determined to be generous to the Poles if they did not force him into atrocities to match their atrocities (the poor Poles seem to be in for atrocities, seeing what he is already claiming), and waging a humane warfare until the French and English should too much try his patience with their atrocities. In Warsaw women and babies were dying under his bombs as he spoke, in all the eastern villages of Poland. Over the whole land the corpses of innocents lay unburied; and it was too plain, from American diplomatic and reportorial testimony, that he had deliberately stretched the term "military objective" to the purpose of bombing open towns and terrorizing fleeing civilians. On the bottom of the Atlantic, the dead, including 28 Americans, from a westbound ship which did not carry contraband, grinned wryly. In the Chicago stockyards the hogs lifted up their heads and called themselves Galahad-not without reason.

All that by way of confusion and cajolery. Then he turned to threats.

He would, he said, drop 500 bombs on England and France for every one dropped on Germany.

He was resistless. Look how his "race of men" ran over Poland.

The British navy needn't be so persnickety and cocksure. He was going to have an irresistible sea force before long.

Besides, the British might be surprised to find themselves in front of a mysterious weapon with which they couldn't cope. (Hollywood should be able to do something with that.)

He laid the groundwork for justifying himself when he chooses to try to terrorize the British and French populace with civilian bombings by charging that the British blockade was an attack on German women and children.

He said that Germany can last seven years. And pointed to the face of Stalin, treacherously smiling in the shadows, for proof.

And at last, he turned God.

Or perhaps it was only Saint Peter, to whom it was given to bind and loose upon this earth. Germany would receive no more ultimatums, she would give them. And Poland was done for, forever. A very long, long word. The same one some of his predecessors used about Belgium and Northern France in 1914 and for some time thereafter.

Altogether, a wonderful speech. Essentially an attempt to substitute words for facts. And quite possibly also an attempt to hide terrible fear and the consciousness of ultimate weakness under bold phrases.

The Bloom Bill

Mr. Cooley Recoils From His Own Vivid Imaginings

If Representative Cooley (Fourth N.C.) honestly believes that the Administration wants the sort of neutrality he ascribes to it, nobody can blame him for being against it. The Bloom Bill, he said in his speech at Raleigh yesterday,

"... would permit the sale and shipment of arms on our ships, flying our own flag, and carrying American citizens as passengers upon floating arsenals, right into submarine infested seas, and into ports of warring nations. "

The first authorized statement of Administration policy was made by Secretary Hull last May in identical letters to Senator Pittman, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Representative Bloom, acting chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Mr. Bloom thereupon offered in the House a joint resolution (H. J. Res. 306; the Bloom Bill) embodying Secretary Hull's recommendations. The proposals, in outline, were:

1. Abolition of the arms embargo.

2. Prohibition against entrance of American vessels into combat areas.

3. Restriction of travel by American citizens in combat areas.

4. Placing of all exports to belligerents on a cash basis.

5. Continued prohibition of loans and credits to belligerents.

6. Control over solicitation of funds for belligerents.

7. Continued regulation of the arms traffic by the Munitions Control Board (composed of the Secretaries of State, Treasury, War, Navy and Commerce).

It is true that revision of the Neutrality Act according to the Administration's preference would permit the carrying of goods to belligerents in American vessels. But not through combat areas. And it is likewise true that under the present scheme of neutrality the President is only authorized, not directed, to prohibit the carrying of goods, other than arms and materials of war, to belligerents in American vessels.

Most of us favor (a) repeal of the arms embargo and (b) retention of the "carry" provision along with the "cash" provision. And nobody favors the sort of neutrality that Mr. Cooley describes. In fact, nobody has ever proposed it.

Nickname

Tar Heelia Entitled To Use Fancy Moniker If It Chooses

There is a mighty toney nickname as yet unclaimed to which North Carolina is rapidly acquiring a title. Tar Heel does well enough and fits in with our old song and story, but it is not unusual for states to have more than one nickname.

Kansas for example, is familiar both as the Sunflower and Jayhawk state. Tennessee likewise runs a brief but astonishing gamut with its two appellations of Volunteer State and Hog-and-Hominy State. And once upon a time even Tar Heelia was better known as the Turpentine State.

More appropriate than either tar or turpentine these days would be silk stockings. The Silk Stocking State--how does that sound?

Well, anyhow, there has been a migration Southward of the silk stocking industry, and in addition a great many mills have been started up by local men and with local money. And of the 64,163 seamless knitting machines in the South, North Carolina has 30,335, or nearly half. Of the 5,056 full-fashioned machines, she has 2,711, or more than half. So our title to the name, if we wanted it, is valid.

 


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