The Charlotte News

Thursday, September 3, 1942

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: Seventy years ago today, Britain and France officially declared war on Germany, two days after the Nazi panzers stormed across the Polish border to start the war.

We therefore feel compelled to offer this little further magic cube for the cubists among us to consider, believe it or not:

Taking that mysterious number of days from Daniel 12:12, 1,335, of which we have made previous mention, and running a count of them from the 19th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki to end World War II, August 9, 1964, one comes, again employing the non-legal convention of including both the first and last days in the calculation, to April 4, 1968, 62 days before June 5.

Running the river of no return backward downstream from the date of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, August 7, 1964, twenty years and 62 days, not including August 7, one comes to June 5, 1944. That total number of days, incidentally, is 7,367, for what it’s worth.

What happened to the two days in between? Perhaps, they ran it forward from August 7, not inclusive of that date, and forgot it was leap year in 1968.

We just thought that we would mention it.

We have made some other calculations, but that’s enough revelation for today.

On the front page, a piece reports on the increase in Allied sinkings of Axis submarines, as Great Britain had managed to equalize its shipping losses with the production of new ships.

The first piece on the editorial page reports similarly of the decline in losses of merchant shipping in August compared to the previous three months, which would toll the highest losses in the entire war.

The crucial Battle of the Atlantic, the necessary artery by which England, Russia, and even China were now being supplied, was turning in favor of the Allies.

In the Egyptian desert, news comes of Rommel’s retreat from his momentary eight-mile thrust into the Allied flank. It was the beginning now of the end there for the Axis.

In Russia, the siege of Stalingrad was beginning. It was the beginning of the end there, too--but for Germany, not, as appearances of the moment would suggest, for Russia.

The Japanese were on the run from the Australians at Milne Bay in Papua New Guinea, had been thus far repulsed in their attempts to regain the precious Henderson Field captured by the Allies on Guadalcanal, now almost a month earlier.

In China, the Japanese were retreating, though appearing to be staging preparations for an attack on Russia.

The tide of war suddenly seemed to be turning ever so slightly by degrees in the Allies’ favor.

But, on the home front, two men in Salisbury, one a "well-known business man", inadvertently drank some insect repellant from a bottle they shared and died.

There were still problems at home to be resolved—which may explain in part why it took three more years and two atomic bombs to win the war.

What is sad about "Dies’ Spies" on the editorial page is that the ilk of Mr. Dies, if not Mr. Dies himself, would eventually do just that which the editorial facetiously suggests in its last sentence.

Beans.

Quick, Henry, the Flit.

"We Give Up" tells of the indeterminate conclusion of the annual interdisciplinary conference of scholars meeting at Columbia, unresolved as to how to proceed in coalescing empirical science, philosophy, and religion into concerted action. They adjourned, seeking from the world for the next year "men of affairs" to aid in their translating thought to practical effect.

Eventually, in 1948, they would apparently turn to Dwight D. Eisenhower as their "man of affairs". But that is only our speculation as to his purpose there as president of Columbia.

Ourselves, we recommend lopointu.

Letter writer Mr. Davis, the once-and-never-again freight hopper who nearly didn’t live to see the opportunity again to hop anything, writes ingloriously of being bound to the profession of hobo. The newspaper’s write-up and his poem to which he refers escaped our notice, probably having been on another page.

So, we’ll imagine what he might have said:

She was a slunk back liner,
Stylish as could be,
Cut the air and me like a knife,
Rilish as any ship on the sea.

Swung me through the pit,
Swung me on a pendulum’s kick,
Made me cry out in a sick fit,
"This rail’s no good to lick."

Lived through the night, lived through the day,
Heard her whistle blow as shrill as any fife,
Blowed me out the window, blowed me through the door,
She was a mighty engine,
But she scraped my soul right off on the floor.

Done forgot her name, but if it’s all the same,
I’ll just call her Mighty Engine,
Who tuckered me to shame.
Her wheels nearly cut off my feet,
My spine felt broke beneath her heat.

Don’t reckon I’ll be goin’ back that way again,
First time with her, she done skinned off my shin.
She was a stubborn old blister, hard to get along,
So I let her go, and she went cumbering on home.

Incidentally, just why the caption on that front page photograph of the first parade of American troops on Fleet Street in London takes special pains to add at its conclusion the location of the Associated Press building, we cannot explain to you. But there it is, once again. And does she want to set them free, and let them see reality from where she got her name?

Framed Edition

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