The Charlotte News
Friday, March 13, 1942
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: William Pigman.
The front page hearkens the news from Russia that the only springtime offensive to be had in the coming weeks would be that of Russia, as the report indicates that Marshal Timoshenko's 1.25 to 1.5 million-man offensive had begun pushing back the Nazis in the Donets Basin to within 40 to 50 miles from the goal of the offensive, the bend of the Dneiper River in the western section of the Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Australian, British, and American planes heavily bombed an air base being utilized by the Japanese on the island of New Britain off New Guinea, as the Japanese appeared to be mounting a naval attack against the Solomon Islands, a key stepping stone for delivering supplies to Australia via New Zealand from the United States. It would be a theater of battle, the Coral Sea and the Solomons, for the next several months and sporadically through 1943. The Marshall and Gilbert Islands also were invaluable mid-ocean lily-pads from Hawaii for this same supply route.
And "Wrong Way" Corrigan, the serendipitous fellow who in July, 1938 flew to California from New York via Ireland, quite illegally, when, he said with a Cheshire grin, a combination of dense fog on takeoff and a bad compass took him errantly across 3,000 miles of ocean, and, having been anointed a hero for it, was now legally ferrying Flying Fortresses from West Coast factories to New York to be shuttled from there to England. As we commented in association with the piece appearing at the time of his flight, however, we still do not understand how he equated the plains of Iowa, for instance, with the waves of the Atlantic, at least before he reached the point of no return. The photograph from this date perhaps tells all.
From the editorial page, we question rhetorically whether "And Yet Again", by lauding the press for its unremitting challenge to lynching in the South and congratulating same for a fine and substantively impacting record in so doing, well-deserved in fact for many newspapers, including The News, nevertheless knocks some of the prestige off that record by counseling as it did in this piece: that the black community should see to it that no attacks by black men upon white women persist, lest the practice of lynching, subsiding to nothing during the previous two years, might again raise its ugly head. Did such a public pronouncement tend to stimulate, if unthinkingly, the precise psychological structures which led to lynching, the notion that the opinion-makers, the captains and tacit enablers who had to co-exist for the understrappers to commit the crime of lynching with impunity in the first instance, might politely wink again and provide implicit approbation to such behavior under limited circumstances where the lynched was, after all, a rapist of white women? It sounds as a reversion to the paternalistic mold: lynching is down; let us keep it down by making sure no attacks occur on white women, else we cannot insure the safety of you black boys against lynching as a consequence.
So, we ask again rhetorically, was it an appropriate piece to present in a potentially volatile atmosphere, especially one already charged by emotions regarding the war, with animosity toward the Japanese at fever pitch, while the newspapers daily filled their columns with stories of death by the wholesale overseas, concomitantly cheapening life itself on the home front?
"Indicting Subversion", from the Christian Science Monitor, excoriates the various fifth column movements in the country for printing what the piece labels "subversive" literature extolling the virtues of fascism and Nazism while decrying the continued effort by the United States in the war. The various groups to which the piece alludes, the America Firsters, the American Bund, Father Coughlin's Christian Front, William Dudley Pelley's Silver Shirts of Asheville, and on down the line--including the lending of franking privileges to some of these groups by former isolationist Congressman Ham Fish and other like congressmen and senators--were, of course, often despicable in their statements, especially those which found Nazism to be the "Wave of the Future" for Europe or, as with Father Coughlin's statements and some of those reverberating within the halls of mid-1941 America First rallies, which uttered outright anti-Semitic sentiments to go along with the isolationist views.
Yet, short of actively urging the immediate violent overthrow of the United States, presenting a clear and present danger of imminent violence by their statements, especially hard to prove in a printed context, their rights, like those of all citizens, were completely protected under the First Amendment and rightfully so. After all, that which gave rise to the First Amendment was the very notion of British suppression of "subversive" literature in the colonies, that which urged rebellion against the Crown. One cannot have it both ways. The First Amendment has no vitality except as a quaint museum piece about which schoolchildren learn, if in practice, it serves nothing but to protect generally accepted speech. What exactly is such a restricted freedom but one which ultimately chills free speech for its limits being unknown at any given moment and subjectively determined only by a wavering line based on vacillating community opinion? Do we glean such a mercurial standard from radio, tv, magazines, newspapers? each of which is a commercial medium selling products and paying its way through advertising. If that were the case, then all of us would have to utter our thoughts in numb-speak, the cool, suave, sophisticated tones of the pitch artist, and do it with a smile, or else suffer the consequences--perhaps even jail for the reprobate who might snarl something so offensive to some as, "Impeach the son-of-a-bitch", or like sentiment.
Indeed, as a culture, we appear at times not far from that point. Let one slightly raise the voice today, even if perfectly appropriate, articulating an objection to outrageous or even dishonest conduct, and one is immediately squelched as inappropriate, often on penalty of arrest for supposedly disturbing the peace or the tender sensibilities of bystanders. Such sensibilities are the result obviously of tv-heads sitting at home watching numb-speak, raised on numb-speak, nurtured on numb-speak, until they actually believe that numb-speak is the norm. It isn't. It is a recipe for ultimate disaster. And it is boring to boot. We are not newscasters, movie idols, soap opera characters, game show hosts and participants or the like.
We think, we speak our thoughts as we damned well wish and as we damned well shall. And damn anyone who says differently, including some idiot who wants to call the police to you for doing so. Shout them down if you must. But get your say. Call them an idiot if you want. It's your right. Indeed, it is not only your right but your obligation as a citizen if what you are doing is merely attempting to register a proper protest for something outrageous in the first instance to someone who refuses to listen or who plays that increasingly obnoxious and reprehensible game of claiming "threat" to anyone who dares offer any retort at all, even one stated politely and appropriately, to some reprobate conduct. It is quickly becoming the accepted confidence game practiced by the confidence men and women. And it is at base a behavior pattern practiced and tolerated over time which is in large part the reason for the financial mess in which the country finds itself today. Too many people are simply afraid to challenge corporate America when some idiot on the telephone speaks those words, "Are you threatening me?" in response to your saying that they are crooks, belong in jail and that you intend to sue them for their outrages.
So, we disagree vehemently with the sentiment registered by the Christian Science Monitor. The piece wastes its print. It should have used the space and the print to argue against the viewpoint being expressed, as undermining democracy and a unified war effort. To silence such criticism with jail or other means is the road to despotism and to disrespect for any system of government which practices such suppression or chilling of free speech.
Indeed, by the latter half of the 1960's, the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover had come to the point of being very little different from a totalitarian secret police force operating in a third world country, creating so much confusion by infiltration of "subversive" groups, by illegal wiretapping, and the like that some of those groups did indeed turn to violence. It is difficult to separate out the stimulus for the violence from the violence resulting from it in such an atmosphere and the practice only led to wholesale disrespect for such tactics and the law enforcement agencies practicing them. For if one prints or says that one has no rights in a country gone mad, and then the FBI surreptitiously infiltrates the group to which the individual belongs and begins an effort at "counter-intelligence", trying to disband the group, isolate its leaders, destroy reputations, etc., then of course the result is often going to be violence, brought on, much as the American Revolution was brought on, by behavior befitting emperors, kings, and dictators, not democratic government. It was for this reason, of course, that Congressional hearings in the latter seventies put a forceful brake on domestic spying activities--a brake which lasted at least until the last Administration, on the excuse of expediency after September 11, 2001, got hold of the Constitution, tore it up and proceeded down their own path of constitutional interpretation at will.
That, fortunately, is now over. Those of the fascist set involved in it had best get used to it and realize that life is not so in a democracy. As we have said before, if you don't like that reality, move to Argentina. They will be glad to have you.
In a democracy we say what we damned well please, especially in time of war, especially when the chips are down. If someone says something with which you disagree, you argue the point or leave. You do not jail them.
The point could not be better made than by the outrageous and despicable jailing of Gandhi by the British in 1942. It was an act worthy of Adolf Hitler. It was an act reminiscent of colonial America under George III, even if we greatly admire Winston Churchill.
And, the little piece from The Chicago Sun on 3.2 near-beer being sold at the carhop in Texas by ladies clad only in their underwear, even with bare midriff, lets you know that civilization did not suddenly come off its foundation springs during the latter 1950's and 1960's with the introduction of the bikini during the "sexual revolution". That was just a press gimmick to sell more magazines and newspapers. Sex, we daresay, has been around for quite awhile. And if it hadn't been, well, we wouldn't be able to say it.
We don't care for near-beer ourselves, but a couple of burgers and fries at a drive-in such as that might spell a long journey on the road nicely. Take heed, burger joints of America, if you want to scoop the manifold competition along Route 66.
Framed Edition
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