The Charlotte News

Friday, June 5, 1942

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: Confucius also said: "A three-cornered vessel without the corners--a strange vessel indeed!"

Incidentally, going back to Harold Stassen for a moment, in 1956, he led a drive at the Republican convention to replace Richard Nixon on the ticket with outgoing Massachusetts Governor Christian Herter. Bear in mind that this move came at a time when President Eisenhower had just recovered from a heart attack and there had been talk in the previous fall that Richard Nixon would be the head of the ticket come the following summer.

Part of the problem, perhaps, insofar as Governor Herter being a suitable replacement on the ticket was ultimately his name and how it might appear on bumper stickers out in the hinterlands: Eisenhower-Herter.

There was, of course, the option of Ike-Christian, but then you would alienate the Jewish and Muslim vote, heavily headed otherwise to Ike’s corner in 1956. Or, you could have given Governor Herter a nickname, such that it would have read simply: Ike-Christ. But that might have been a little over the top, even for those who liked Ike.

So, instead, Governor Herter became Undersecretary of State and, in 1959, Secretary of State when John Foster Dulles died, serving out the remainder of Eisenhower’s term in that capacity. Herter also served the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations between 1962 and 1966 in the capacity of the first U.S. Trade Representative.

For some reason, we’ve always thought that "Harold Stassen" did not quite have a presidential ring to it either. "I Like Ike", "All the Way with JFK": Where’s the ring and rime to Harold Stassen? His middle initial, being "E", did not improve the prospects. "We’ll Have All the Best with HES", or something like that, just wasn’t going to work with the average run of the mine voter. It’s just one of those things, sort of like Paul McNutt having been considered as the Democratic nominee in 1940. "Have a Ball with Paul"? Probably not.

Of course, by 1962, when former Vice-President Nixon was campaigning to be elected governor of California, some of his supporters’ preferences for campaign sloganeering probably could have been brushed up a little as well.

The editorial page today is a bit of a hodge-podge. An editorial on the Bong of Wong, chief of the largest tribe of headhunters in Assam province in India, tells of his having declared war on Japan a few weeks earlier, becoming a welcome addition to the United Nations. We reflect to a time in the early 1970’s when in Chapel Hill there was a shop called The Shrunken Head, which, as we recall, sold many a Bong, and shrunk a few heads probably, too. In any event, it is in keeping with the chord we have struck with the Land of 1000 Dances, we suppose.

Another editorial speaks of the short-sightedness of continuing Congressional support for deceased Texas Senator Morris Sheppard’s bill to limit beer and liquor sales anywhere near a military reservation, obviously a bill trying to prevent those shrunken heads. Senator Sheppard, of course, was succeeded by Texas Governor "Pass the Biscuits" Pappy O’Daniel and his hillbilly band, who barely beat Lyndon Johnson the previous July.

The lead editorial speaks further of the insane asylum at Morganton, this time, reprising some of Tom Jimison’s caustic comments about the place and its attempt to shrink heads.

A letter writer, Mr. Hughes, not to be confused with Howard Karnes of May 30, writes in support of the gas rationing board for its on-the-double quick dispensation to the traveling salesmen’s lot a rigorous administration of exceptional allotment, all in further attempt, no doubt, to shrink heads.

And we find out the musicological underpinnings of the tune for "America", that it derives, by way of Britain and Germany, from some tune whistled up by an old Hun, who brought it over probably from somewhere in Asia. Maybe, it actually originated from some headhunter somewhere in New Guinea.

In quick succession, we are informed that many a hit was jotted on the spot, perhaps on the jit, maybe on the cot. That "Night Plane" is not bad, except it is too short, maybe written while holding down the fort.

Anyway, we found here some people sitting around their parlor on Christmas singing that song written in the desert, "A Perfect Day", as referenced in the piece from The Chattanooga Times. We can only ask though, if ‘twas so perfect, why is the song sung so sadly and syrupily, and the lady’s eyes running so waterily? We don’t like that song. It’s silly.

Last night, we found a song we had never heard before, as performed by Phil Ochs while John Lennon spoke to him of its musicological origins. We were never aware that the twain had met. The song was called "Chords of Fame", made especially poignant by the manner in which each of these two gents passed from the earth in separate ways later on. That’s not a bad song. It’s not silly, anyway.

There’s no such thing as "a perfect day". That’s just silly. Blubbering on Christmas day like that. They should be ashamed. They were all quite glum. It was not perfect at all.

"Night Train" is not a bad run. But there are a number of them by that title and so you will have to first figure out which one we mean and then you will have to go about finding it. It’s not dissimilar to "Night Plane".

John Milton said in Paradise Lost: "Parted by th' Empyreal Bounds, His Quadrature, from thy Orbicular World."

Confucius also said: "The Superior Man is a Catholic and not a Partisan. The Small Man is a Partisan and not a Catholic."

Do you suppose that Confucius was addressing the issue of the objection registered by the Lumberton Baptist ministers in 1942? If so, he was a sort akin to Nostradamus, wasn't he?

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