The Charlotte News

Tuesday, June 2, 1942

FIVE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: As the editorial page is changing, we shall proceed to stress it for the next couple of months, leaving aside the front pages, with sporadic exceptions, for the time being. We shall furnish the omitted front pages to you separately at some future time so you may stay abreast of all the news fit to print on the front page of The News. (Besides, they take away too much of our attention, and after six months of them daily, excepting February, we find ourselves exhausted with those unrelentingly bold headlines. And, we can barely read half of them in their present form anyway. They will still be there when we get back to them, and considerably improved in discernibility at that point, we assure. We shall let you know.)

This day would find Vice-Admiral Nagumo’s Midway Task Force heading for a head-on wreck with the Pacific Fleet. The object was to draw the Fleet out into the open ocean and deal it the decisive blow which had not been dealt at Pearl Harbor, all the Japanese propaganda of resounding initial success notwithstanding. American intelligence this time was not caught sleeping and intercepted radio transmissions indicating the plan and course of the Task Force.

But was this intercept not intentional on the part of the Japanese, to draw the American Fleet into the open ocean this time, into the Tiger’s lair, where the Fleet could be sunk in the open ocean without hope of salvage? If that was the goal, then it would seem so. Surely the Japanese, after the successful blackout of information and seepage of deliberately confusing information preceding the attack on Pearl Harbor, were not so naive as to allow seepage of crucial intelligence without deliberate intent.

The first raids would not come until the following day, launched by the Allies, and thus we shall wait until tomorrow to assess the battle further.

Today’s editorial page re-prints a piece from The American Mercury, which by this time had become a more conservative publication than in its original incarnation under the editorship of H. L. Mencken and ownership and publication by Alfred and Blanche Knopf; now, it was owned and edited by Lawrence E. Spivak, future moderator of "Meet the Press".

This particular piece, without a by-line, discusses the use of physicality by the Nazis, with a view toward procreation of lots of little Nazis, to subdue and conquer the conquered via the oldest trick in the Book--Delilah. It points out that it is a good explanation for the imprisoning in concentration camps of 1,350,000 Frenchmen, one-quarter of the French male population in a pro-active age group, 20 to 40. Of course, there were other good reasons for this imprisonment, namely the tendency of this younger group of men to be willingly involved in the Resistance.

Nevertheless, the peek into this side of Hitler’s mind and the mentality of the Nazi is worthwhile. There is no denying that this aspect of his propaganda tool was a fundamental part of the New Order proposed by Der Fuehrer—namely rape and literal reduction to prostitution of the female portion of the land conquered, further emasculating the males already subdued militarily, humiliated by forcible surrender at the end of the subjugating cat o’ nine tails.

By contrast to this New Order of Der Fuehrer, Ray Clapper writes of the "new frontier" foreseen by Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles, that which he found similar to the vision expostulated by Henry Wallace on May 8 in his speech to the Free World Association in New York, a new frontier where international cooperation, sovereign equality among peoples, assurance of democratic forms of government throughout the world, human welfare, and equitable trade in commerce would be the watchwords, an end of international imperialism, all overseen by the United Nations.

Thus, we have a clear contrast between the New Order and the New Frontier.

Of course, there were the problems encountered over time of being peoples separated by a common language, as further elucidated in the little piece entitled "English Fight Rearguard Action".

It occurs to us, parenthetically, that this gulf was also represented in Pygmalion, but that is merely surmise.

And, "The Cigar" indicates the terrible inflation going on with the five-center, as typical cigars were now running as high as 20¢ apiece or more, God forbid. Well, that isn’t so bad; we know where we may still find some pretty good ones for a buck apiece, believe it or not. And they are quite good.

We know what you’re thinking. Bridges, cigars, etc.

You’re thinking: Gee, after fifty years, why not stop all this silliness and open trade with Cuba?

Right?

"Bon appetit."

"Goldberg."

Goodnight, Gracie.