The Charlotte News

Monday, August 3, 1942

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: Now, once again, that for which you've been waiting.

Okay, quiet down.

Right here on our stage--and we just want to comment on how well-behaved, truly, they have been while visiting here in America--now getting ready to sing for you their latest hits, recently released here on one record, "I Want to Hold Your Hind" and "I Saw Her Stinting There". So let's hear it now, once again, for Walrus, St. Paul, St. George, and Otter--the Pribolofs.

Incidentally, anent the Beaver on Saturday's front page, and some other things as well, we thought we would refer you back to these two dates, October 30, 1938 and November 10, 1938.

Boo.

And don't forget that the Pribolofs comprise the sealing capital of the world.

We have to wonder whether they have any panthers there in the Pribolofs. Perhaps, we could go on safari there next year with TR and the Hope Diamond heir, along the Washington Post Road. Well, we shall investigate that another day.

Today's front page reports on the quick decision by the military tribunal sitting in judgment of the eight Nazi saboteurs on trial for their lives in Washington, just after a weekend's intercession since the verdict of the Supreme Court handed down Friday allowing the trial to go forward in the military court. Now, the evidence would be reviewed by the President to determine the final fate of the eight.

More is reported on the arrest of Mimo De Guzman, the Filipino who associated with the Black Dragon Society, according to the FBI, anti-white organization led by Japanese anti-white conspirator, Major Takahashi. De Guzman and Takahashi were, said the FBI, plotting to unite the "dark-skinned races" against the whites.

In the Caucasus, Don and Kuban Cossacks were reported to be repelling the Nazi advance into that region south of Rostov.

Paul Mallon, on the editorial page, tells of the creeping problem for both the Nazis and the Russians over the Caucasus oil fields. The Nazis needed them to sustain their 400,000 barrel per day utilization of oil to slake the thirst of their insatiable war machine; Russia needed, simply for sustenance of its population, the 63% portion of its peacetime supply which the Caucasus provided. Who would gain control of the Caucasus would probably therefore determine the outcome of the Russo-German war.

In France, Pierre Laval had ordered the banning of public demonstrations and exaction of the death penalty for those caught in unauthorized possession of explosives and firearms. Worries abounded that talk of a second front offensive might encourage resistance activity to link with Allied invasionary forces when they came.

All in good time, Pierre. All in good time.

Off the French coast, there was another night battle Saturday between German and British torpedo boats. Said the dispatch, the Nazi coastal gunners became so confused that they fired on their own boats and seamen.

Perhaps, Fritz wasn't confused at all, just getting wise that the jig was up and resorting thus to prophylactic measures to insure a future safe for all, over the seven seas.

Meanwhile, reports the box on the lower right, we have it demonstrated in a full-page comic strip the physiological differences between the friendly Chinese and the inimical Japanese.

They didn't need a full page for that. One has a beard; one doesn't. One has a polysyllabic name; one has a monosyllabic name. It's rather simple.

And, complementary to the picture of the Essex on the front page of June 17, the page is adorned this date by another photo of the giant carrier as it was launched down the ways for a long career along the proud seas' highway--in the wild, wild West.

On the editorial page, once again Lyndon Johnson draws attention for his carping at the relatively backdated air capabilities of the Army and Navy in the Far East, from which he had just returned, having observed at close hand the Pacific front. "A Shakeup?" suggests that, despite his lack of military expertise, Congressman Johnson ought be given a hearing before the Administration.

He had, after all, a rather large knife which he carried around in the pocket of his trousers.

It was the first time the future President had been mentioned in the column since July 2 of the previous year, that editorial commenting on his loss by 1,311 votes, some of which had been borne out of the cemetery, to Governor Pass-the-Biscuits Pappy Lee O'Daniel and his hillbilly band in the race to fill the vacant Texas Senate seat in the wake of the death of Morris Shepard.

"Offensive Millions" reports on the nightly cost of war, using as example Friday night's raid on Dusseldorf, a raid of merely 300 planes. The raid, losing 31 planes and their crews, the editorial figures conservatively, had cost the Allies a total of $23,455,000, including the cost of the planes, $250,000, the cost of training each of the crews, $750,000 for the five, and the cost of fuel for the 600-mile roundtrip, about $225,000.

Thus, the cost of 1,000-plane raids such as those on Cologne and Essen on May 30 and June 2, and the one of June 26 on Bremen was--?

War was never cheap. But neither was giving into the forces of totalitarianism.

Among the letters to the editor, Tommy McNeal understood the problem. The solution of course to the hormonal dilemma in which the male of the species often finds himself would come along in 1953. It was: Marilyn Monroe.

Voila! No more world wars.

The one by E. L. Moore brings to mind this earlier one by Cash.

Mr. Eatman asks pointedly, getting down to brass tacks, he says, whether the blood of the black wasn't being mixed with the blood of the white, as he had read of late with great concern over the fate of his son and son-in-law currently in service and thus at grave risk if so. The News responds in a note that the Red Cross categorically denied the mixing of blood, but offers also that other countries have so mixed the blood on the battle lines for some time and that there is no difference racially in blood.

Huh. We had always thought that the blood of the black man was black. Just as that of the white man is white. And just as that of the red man...

Well, Mr. Eatman, no doubt, was pleased to hear it and felt comforted that his sons and sons-in-law would receive the segregated blood of the human race, competently served them by the Red Cross in their white uniforms, comprised strictly of whites.

We wonder if any of Mr. Eatman's relatives hit the beaches on D-Day, and if so, they then worried secretly of whether the blood they might receive in transfusion was that of a black man or, maybe even worse, that of a Jap. Better just to die from the German shrapnel, we suppose. Cheerio.

Where is our welding torch?

Oh, there you are, right next to the cloth coat at which the little cocker spaniel had a good tug last week.

Paul Mallon also reports of Chief Justice Harlan Stone turning down a request by the President that the Chief sit as head of an oversight panel on rubber. The Chief did not wish to be viewed as a rubber stamp for the Administration. Both the White House and the Chief Justice, however, later denied that he was ever sought for the position in the first place.

As we have suggested before, figure out rubber, oil, cotton, silk, tin, mercury, manganese, chromium, steel, coal, hosiery, underwear, rabbits, sugar, milk, and the looking glass, and their inter-relationships, and you will pretty much understand World War II--not to mention every war since.

Ernie Pyle asks the question from Belfast: wood or wire?

And, the piece culled from the Charlotte Labor Journal, titled "How to Lose a War", may be summarized in this fashion: W.I.N.

But, to understand that, you would have needed to keep your helmet secure. Did you?

Framed Edition

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