The Charlotte News

Tuesday, December 10, 1940

FOUR EDITORIALS

 

Site Ed. Note: "There They Go" tells us of the first round of draftees for training, some of whom no doubt would be at Hickam Field 362 days from this date.

"No Window" and "In the Open" darkly predict that Hitler would seek what he had already done to Europe if the United States sought an appeasement route. Cash would soften his view, however, on former Ambassador to Great Britain, Joseph Kennedy, by January 24 in "The Star Witness", as Kennedy by that point had altered his position, ignored by much of the trash history written in the wake of President Kennedy's election by revisionists seeking a cheap crack at the new President (who had disagreed with his father regarding his initial position during 1940). (See also "In Order", December 2, 1940 and "The Witnesses", January 18, 1941) The reputation, however, would even follow the President into Dealey Plaza where seconds before the assassination a man raised an umbrella which he later declared was symbolic of Neville Chamberlain and Joseph Kennedy's perceived similar stance on appeasement--one would have to admit a rather odd thing to do 23 years after the Ambassador had left England.

There They Go

Forerunners of a Long Line Of Civilians Into Soldiers

"Draftees," the headlines writers call them, and shake their heads at the suggestion of trying "volunteer draftees" or selectees. "Too long," they say; "won't count."

But that group of good-looking young men who left this city yesterday for Fort Bragg, first experience in a year (and maybe longer) of Army life, deserve to be called something more than draftees, even though that word itself is anything but uncomplementary.

"Drafteers," shall we say?

Why not? These are new days, and new words are needed to describe some of the things that are in our minds. The thing, let us say, that was in the minds of the young drafteers. A sort of uncertainty as to what, ultimately, would be asked of them. Yet a keen anxiety to be equal to it, whatever it might be.

An instant readiness to give up civil life though the nation is at peace, to take a year (or more) out of their time to be trained to fight for their country if that should become necessary. A sort of "we don't know where we're going but we're on our way" sentiment, and a high resolve, probably not even phrased to themselves, to be ready for anything.

What they have done in full measure--that is, to become physically a part of national defense--the rest of us surely could do in some lesser degree. How can we serve? Are we doing, as individuals and as a community, everything that we could do?

Are there materials needed for national defense which our shops and factories can be turning out? Is there a way in which we could expedite the building of the Air Base, so that its training of flyers could be proceeding? Are we alert to every opportunity and getting on with the enormous task of making ready to back up these young drafteers and the hundreds of thousands of men in our fighting forces with our full and united resources? Anything short of that would be discreditable.

 

Happy Loss

Nobody Will Shed Tears Over Passing of Holt

One great comfort the new year will fetch along with it will be the disappearance of lame-duck Senator Rush Holt of West Virginia, from the national stage--we hope forever.

Sunday he snarled of England, our first-line of defense against Hitlerism, that she was using "the old Statue of Liberty play," and,

"They don't need money, they do want credit, they don't even care what play we use just so we carry the ball for them."

A snide, cross-grain of that speech is almost a perfect measure of the man.

He came on the stage with everything in his favor. He had been elected to the Senate so young that he had to wait until he reached the legal age for taking the oath of office. He was described as brilliant and progressive, a thinker in politics with a great future in front of him.

But from the beginning he disappointed. Labeled a New Dealer to begin with he quarreled with it within a few months over obscure personal questions which clearly came to nothing but inflated ego that felt it hadn't had its due. And since then he has quarreled with everything and everybody save one or two other cross-grained natures like Champ Clark the Little. The only consistency that can be read into his eternally carping record is that of ill-nature and ego-mania.

He goes out of office with as scant proportion of the liking and respect of the American people as any Senator ever had. And the kindest thing that can be hoped for him is that his natural obscurity will again swallow him up quickly.

 

No Windows

But Plenty of Heads Got Smashed in Revolution

"I am proud to say that the revolution occurred in 1933 without the smashing of a single window," --Adolf Hitler, Dec. 10, 1940.

He is talking about the Nazi revolution--his own. And it is quite true that he came to power in the first place without bloodshed or violence. He came to power by cunning and falsehood. First he persuaded the big fat cats of German business, headed by Fritz Thyssen, to turn the heat on old Paul von Hindenberg to make him (Hitler) Chancellor of Germany. And old Paul fell for it, fell for Hitler's glib promises to respect the guarantees of the Republic.

But once he was in power, he promptly took steps to see that he remained in power. Maybe no windows were smashed. But a great many heads were. The Reichstag was burned at his command, and a great hullabaloo was raised to the effect that the Communists and Liberals, everybody Hitler wanted to get, were planning to revolt, were already revolting.

And so the Storm Troopers went about killing everybody Hitler wanted to be rid of or carting them off to concentration camps to be tortured slowly to death.

The Nazi revolution turned out in the end to be perhaps not the bloodiest but certainly the most brutal of modern times.

The whole claim is a sort of model of Hitler's technique. He still believes, apparently, that if you mix one drop of truth with a ton of lies, people accept it all for the truth.

 

In The Open

Appeasers, Gaining Ground, Begin To Pluck Up Heart

The advocates of appeasement (who a few weeks ago bitterly objected to the word and denied the allegation contained in it) are now so hardened that they have begun to come boldly out and call for it by its right name.

It is a pretty good measure of how rapidly sentiment for it is being built up in this country--in part by Nazi agents, but more by people like Joseph P. Kennedy. Big business men in particular seem to be falling for it with enthusiasm. And there are even rumors that Kennedy has succeeded in half-convincing Mr. Roosevelt that it is up to us to try to arrange a "peace" between Hitler and England.

So far as that goes, "peace" is undoubtedly possible. It is even probable that Adolf Hitler will agree to let England off light if it is agreed that he is to have the whole Continent of Europe--and if the United States agrees to come within his orbit economically.

For the time being also, it is probable that he will even give us his highly valuable word not to attempt to take over Latin America. What he needs at present is time to consolidate his conquest and to build up his war machine to the point at which the easy conquest of the Americas will become a mathematical certainty.

What is really proposed is that we give him his full way--or that we condemn ourselves from here on out to living as an armed military camp. Of the two, the former is more probable. For it is almost certain that if "peace" comes, a great clamor will be raised for stopping of defense spending.

In short, we may be witnessing the final debacle of democracy. If "peace" ever comes by the appeasement route, it can be confidently predicted that thereafter there will be nothing but appeasement and more appeasement. Democracy, having surrendered to save its cash box, will have conclusively lost the will to resist. But perhaps it doesn't matter. The grudging "aid" we are giving England suggests all too strongly that the will to resist is already a mere shadow.


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