The Charlotte News

Wednesday, July 8, 1942

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports of the apparent capture by the Nazis of Voronezh, splitting the rail line in half between Moscow and Rostov. The Russians, however, claimed to be holding the Nazis on the west bank of the Don while wiping out their nests on the east bank.

The map shows the relative distance between Moscow and Rostov and then to the border of Turkey by comparison to a U.S. map showing the distance from Detroit to Orlando.

In Washington, the military tribunal convened to try the eight saboteurs delivered to U.S. shores by U-boat.

U-boat activity off the North Carolina coast had become so prolific that more strict regulations had to be implemented than the previous order preventing use of headlights within five miles of shore and mandating a 15 mph speed limit. Several roads along the North Carolina coastline, as listed in the report, were now to be closed to all traffic except residents, who could use them at night only without burning headlamps. U-boat captains beware: you were now to be shooting in the dark.

At El Alamein, the British and German divisions were locked in a head-to-head siege in the sand.

In "Caoutchoue", (which we assume is a sneeze), the editorial column carps, along with Bible-beating letter-writing rhymer L.A. Tatum, of the inconsistency of rationing, the editorial complaining that the West Coast was not being rationed on gas as was the East Coast, resulting in consumption of rubber at a higher rate in the West than in the East. It calls for consistency, national unity in rationing.

Cuckoo-Caoutchoue.

Striking a similar chirp, Paul Mallon reprints a letter from a reader in Texas complaining of the overflowing sugar storage facilities causing a plant at Sugarland to shut down for want of any place to put its product.

The problem, of course, in both situations was lack of rolling stock to get the sugar or gasoline across the country to the consumer. But, as the front page reports, a new pipeline was on its way to approval, to extend from Mississippi to Florida to Savannah or Charleston.

Rubber, on the other hand, was in actual shortage, at least until a synthetic substitute could be produced in sufficient quantity and at an acceptably marketable cost to make up for the loss of the rubber plantations in the Far East, now in Japanese hands.

Pertinax, the French journalist, supplants the column today of vacationing Dorothy Thompson, telling of the Turkish position in the war. Turkey had remained neutral, friendly to the Allies, but nevertheless warming also to Germany, sitting on the fence awaiting news of the outcome, as had been Mexico until May when self-interest finally got its blood boiling.

A year earlier, Turkey had concluded a pact with Germany on the eve of the Russian invasion by the Nazis assuring "friendly communication" between the countries on all questions of "common interest".

At the time, Stalin had pledged to provide support to Turkey if Germany invaded it; instead, on June 22, Hitler invaded Russia.

Turkey, as Herblock had depicted a few months earlier, was content to rest smoking its hookah, playing it safe, knowing of its strategic importance to each side for its acting as buffer to Middle Eastern oil. "Let's you and them fight" over access to the Dardanelles was its motto.

So, anyway, if we can't drive to the beach, we'll just walk.