The Charlotte News

Tuesday, March 3, 1942

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: ...The weather, like unto a mercurial shrew, named Kate.

Signal of things to come in 1943, RAF bombers reported the sinking of an Italian merchant vessel and damage to several others in the port at Palermo in Sicily.

And indicative of the desperate straits into which the British now feared India would soon pass, with the Japanese all but in command of all of Burma and thus, but for the tough mountain passes and few roads separating the countries, within striking distance by airplane at least of India, the Allies had agreed to return General Sir Archibald Wavell to his former position as commander-in-chief of the forces in India from his appointment in January as commander-in-chief of the forces in the Dutch East Indies, returning the latter to Dutch command. To what degree the move suggested the inevitable lost cause of the Indies and to what degree it hearkened the increased need of Wavell's diplomatic skills for uniting India's fighting forces and thus to dampen nationalistic spirit toward independence which otherwise might produce Fifth Column activity in support of the Japanese invaders promising independence from Britain, the reports could not distinguish of the moment.

The front page also reports that Brazil had formed a pact with the United States whereby assurances of defense against Axis attack and Lend-Lease aid would be provided, the latter to stimulate transportation of iron ore and production of rubber in exchange for supplies of the now dwindling commodities, rubber especially being in scarce supply with the loss of Malaya, former supplier of 90% of U.S. needs.

The column also solemnly registers its opposition to civilians offering payment of $500 rewards to soldiers and sailors for special heroics, such as sinking submarines, that the only way to win the war was not through such gimmickry of privately offered incentive but rather through the sacrifice of blood. As foreboding as it sounded, the advice, learned from World War I, was accurately declarative of that which was to come for the ensuing three and a half years.

A letter writer, a patient at Morganton, writes that the insane asylum is not so bad as Tom Jimison had made it out to be in his January series of articles on the establishment. Among other salutary benefits, the patient contends, metrazol was performing wonders for the diseased minds habituating the place. Metrazol is the proprietary name for leptazol, which, by any other name, is a drug which stimulates respiratory and motor activity to the point that convulsions result. It was once thought that these convulsions were good to inhibit or control the process by which chemicals in the brain produce memory, thought thus ameliorative of psychiatric disorders, a process similar to the other archaic form of treatment along the same lines, shock therapy.

The patient also, among other opinions held certainly, attributes the high auto accident rate in North Carolina to "drunkenness and lewd women".

Not to mention being plain nuts and having memory traces erased by wunder-drugs such as leptazol.

"Well, officer, green means 'go', as I, and no doubt you, were taught. Therefore, when I saw the golf course, I had but one conclusion formed in my mind."

"No sir, the yellow grass would mean exercise caution but proceed anyway."

"What? You're just silly. There's no such thing as red grass."

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I got the par four on 9, through the water trap and over the sand completely on 10."

"Thank you, too. I am studying art at the community college night classes, and you're so right, the skid-marks between those two holes do appear to form the figure of a woman."

"No, she isn't. The trees form the top and skirt. You're just being downright naughty, now."