The Charlotte News

Wednesday, October 4, 1939

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: I wish. I wish. I wish. Peace!--on my terms.

What a country does often as not springs from the font of first what a large segment of its citizenry first practiced as individuals within that country, until ultimately it became the culture, more or less.

"We saw it and it happened." Oh my, my, my, my. Conjurers and sorcerers, witches and wizards they become: how impressive--never stopping to consider that the conjuring wish-thinking is nothing but splaying stupid slander and unbaked half-witted ideas.

It does not cost anything to read and educate and constantly re-educate one's self to higher understanding. The cost is mighty for everyone, however, for those apple pluckers who don't, who want to sit around studying only what understanding there may be gleaned from gossip and "news" about little sentimental stories of this or that crime or car chase somewhere.

"Gosh, I work too hard. I don't have time to think. If you had a job like mine, you'd understa-and. I'm bo-ored. I have an idea. Let's have a wo-ar."

Our advice: Get a new job, one where you have time to think, i.e., one that's honest, this time, Hitler.

European Morale Sends The Latins Under U.S. Wings

The sinking of the British freighter, Clement, off the coast of Brazil by a German raider--either an armed merchantman or a pocket battleship--had immediate and unpleasant repercussions for Germany. For it quickly made up the minds of the 21 American countries in session in Panama to agree on the establishment of a wide neutral zone in the seas around American shores. Hitherto the accepted view of the proper extent of territorial waters has been from three to twelve miles. Under the plan which has now been adopted in principle it will vary, but in some places it may go up to 200 miles.

The idea is, of course, to keep the fighting altogether out of the Americas. That means keeping it out of the British and French possessions in the Americas and American waters also. (It does not, however, include Canadian waters.) Germany won't like that. But it is not likely that she will care to challenge it, in view of the fact that the United States Navy will probably be set as watchdog over the area.

The most interesting thing about all this, however, is the way in which the war has brought the Latin-American countries into unanimity with the United States- indeed, into eagerness to hover under her wing. Up until the conflict began, several of these nations have certainly been making up to the Nazi while denying it assiduously--including Peru, Chile, Bolivia, and San Salvador. Even Mexico, itself Red after some fashion, was carrying on a flirtation with the swastika nearly as curious as the one Russia is presently engaged with. And Argentina, though it wasn't really snuggling up to the Nazis, was inclined nevertheless to play them off against the United States and plague us with the fear that someday she might succumb to their allurements.

The explanation of all this, of course, was trade. The United States, with its high tariffs, surpluses of raw materials and high living standards, affords a poor market for the Latins, and so far all of Mr. Hull's schemes have been unable to overcome that to any great extent. The Nazis, on the other hand, needed to get raw materials even more desperately than the Latins needed to sell them, and to that end were willing to offer very advantageous payments in manufactured goods.

But with their goods they insisted imperiously on sending in their ideology and their agents, too. And to get the first the Latins had to submit to the second.

Now, however, the British Navy has struck the Nazi commerce all but dead. Whatever trade with Europe is to go on must be done with England and France--who naturally would not like to have the Nazi ideology flourishing in South America. And in addition, the Latins need a customer to take the place of the Germans--a role which the United States alone can play. And will be delighted to, you may be sure.

Senator Borah Indulges In Some Unhappy Remarks

In his first outpouring against the repeal of the arms embargo, William Edgar Borah, not only attempted to set up the preposterous equation: REPEAL equals WAR, but also proceeded to deliver himself of the following:

The Senator was apparently attempting to prove that the cash-and-carry-plan is "unneutral" on the basis of Baruch's own remarks. But the ringing of Mr. Baruch's name into this argument and the use of that clause, "that distinguished financier, known well on two continents," inevitably raises other questions also.

Mr. Baruch, as everyone knows, is a Jew. More--there is in Detroit a blatant priest named Coughlin, who subscribes to Adolf Hitler's carefully built up myth that there is an international (look at that word) conspiracy of Jewish financiers (look at those words) to overthrow all existing governments and systems of life. And--as every reader of Coughlin's propaganda sheet, Social Justice, well knows, it is precisely Bernard Baruch who figures most constantly in its pages as the head and front of the "conspiracy" in this country.

Inevitably, this speech of Senator Borah is going to be hailed by Coughlin and his dupes with great delight as lending support to their view; inevitably they are going to peddle it around the country as "proof," both of the "conspiracy" and the claim that a part of that "conspiracy" is a "plot" to repeal the arms embargo and then hustle us into war.

Did Senator Borah know that when he made that speech? If not he is more obtuse today than he was the day last July when he told the President that he knew more about Europe than the State Department and that there wasn't going to be a war this year.

And if he did--then the kindest thing that can be said is that an old man has become so fixed upon one point that he supports it with outright slander.

Mr. A. Hitler Protests A Bit Too Much, We Think

Another hopeful phenomenon from the Allied standpoint is Mr. A. Hitler's desperate determination to try somehow to force peace and the recognition of his Polish conquest without the need of fighting a long war. Thus a dispatch from Berlin under yesterday's dateline:

England, as well as France, might point out that she has already answered that fully and clearly. She has said, as France has said, that she doesn't indeed want war, but that she wants Mr. A. Hitler and his Nazi gangsters even less, and that she means to give them war until they are done for--or she is.

Mr. Hitler has a great faculty for wish-thinking, hitherto has succeeded in getting what he wanted simply by wishing it, and so it may be that he actually does fail to comprehend that the English and French mean it. But it is also probable that in all this desperate fishing to avoid the big test now, there is a strong fear that the Nazis are unequal to it.