The Charlotte News

Thursday, February 6, 1941

THREE EDITORIALS

 

Site Ed. Note: When we first put up the editorials for this day, we didn't have access to the title of the first editorial and so we guessed from the theme of the editorial, just to have a mark for indexing purposes, for we didn't then know how long it would be before we got the straight information from the source. And, lo and behold, we were quite wrong. We are quite surprised no one called the error to our attention since someone must have remembered, it being only 62 years, a short span in the history of mankind, since this day's pieces appeared, and certainly within the living memory of someone. So we simply waited patiently, went back a few weeks later and made the proper correction, truly disappointed that Charlotte or someone akin to her did not mention the truth to us in the intervening period. But, such is life, full of little disappointments.

No doubt, Mr. Cash, who had it pointed out to him once by a letter to the editor, duly printed, that he had misspelled Nietzsche, sometimes grew a little tired of people correcting the details which seemed a bit overly detailed at the time so as to be unncessary for correction, though susceptible to it they may have been. And so "Misstep", of which we also did not have the latter three paragraphs when originally we put it on here.

You may even notice that once in awhile, rarely though it is, we make a little eror ourselves here and yonder, as our typing skills often underrun our thought processes or time may undercut our complete and thorough research to the nth degree. But, sometimes, so the reader won't perceive us as part of the Great Bozart Booby, we go back and try to correct them. And sometimes we leave them, deliberately, because they somehow, the littlest of errors, make some pertty good sense after all to educate on something which otherwise would be missed by correction.

Well, enough on that. We respect the Charlottes of the world and we truly need them, for we would be at a great loss without them. And, no doubt, so too did Mr. Cash. But remember, also, to be a bit gentle in your correction, for the maxim does usually apply that if you have nothing postive to say, say not a thing at all. For, just as Mr. Cash had, there's a whole lot of code to sort through in preparing one of these things, and the substance, we find, is usually the more important. On that we try to stay steady to the course.

Almost Fit

Those Who Need Army Most, Just Miss It

There was heartfelt regret in the words of the local physician, quoted in Tuesday's News, to the effect that Army doctors examining drafted men at Fort Bragg hadn't seen eye to eye with the doctors doing the examining for the local draft board.

When men here were found without jobs and with only slight physical defects they had been sent along to the camp in the belief that Army food and life would soon turn them into stout specimens of manhood. It was surprising, said the doctor, how many men didn't get enough to eat in Charlotte. But the Army doctors at Bragg were inexorable. Men with slight defects were turned down, regardless.

It is possible to see good reason for that. The Army just now is engaged in building up an adequate fighting force in the briefest possible time. To do that it naturally wants to start with the best possible material. And moreover, it lacks adequate equipment to train even the best on the scale it desires.

But one inevitably sympathizes with the viewpoint of the local doctor. For such men as he describes the year in the army, with plenty of good food, exercise, and regular hours, would be a godsend--in many cases would undoubtedly change the whole future course of their lives, for the better. And after a few months of it, it seems probable that they would make as good soldiers as those who begin with a perfect showing.

If the Army itself hasn't the time or facilities to do it, what's wrong with using the CCC as a preliminary training school in which to build up such men for a while--and so prepare them to take up the regular Army routine?

A Misstep

A Young Woman Sets Out Toward a Fearful Fate

It was, we fear, a sad day's work for Charlotte, and an even sadder one for the public at large--so far as it will hereafter encounter Charlotte. We mean a young woman named Charlotte Safranski, of Chicago, and not the Friendly City.

For fifteen years now a green-backed book called "Composition for College Students," by Professors Thomas, Manchester and Scott, has been kicking around college classrooms. Thousands and thousands of students had conned it in pain and tribulation and the curses directed at it by impassioned freshmen and sophomores have caused disturbances in the constellation Hercules, which is 50,000 light years away from our little ball.

But all these years a fatal flaw had been in its pages. A quotation had been credited to Max Eastman, whereas it actually belonged to Max Beerbohm. Not one of the thousands of students had discovered it. Neither had the Herr Professors, it authors. And neither had Mr. Eastman or Mr. Beerbohm.

But then Charlotte turned up as a freshman at Mundelein College, and promptly spotted the dreadful thing and as promptly reported it in triumph.

It is a bad, bad beginning for a seventeen-year-old. By taking herself firmly in hand Charlotte may yet save the pieces. But the chances are at least a thousand to one that she is going to grow up and spend her adult years writing to the editors of newspapers to complain that they said the Nation when it was really the New Republic, or triumphantly proclaiming that Hercules is not 50,000 light years away but only 10,000 or 17,000 or whatever may be, as you can plainly see in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Charlotte clearly needs a talking to.

No Outrage

Unless the Plain Truth Has Become Outrageous

The President may be ill-advised in losing his temper in connection with Burton Wheeler. But one thing is clear: his remarks are not the "outrage" old Hiram Johnson calls them.

There is no good evidence that Burton Wheeler has Nazi sympathies, though there is some that he regards Britain with suspicion and dislike. That, however, seems to proceed simply from his conviction that England is the head and font of "imperialism," and that this is an "imperialistic" war.

On the whole, the worst that can be said of Wheeler's character and intentions, so far as the evidence goes, is that he is a somewhat silly and highly opinionated wish-thinker who hasn't taken the trouble to find out what Hitler is actually about--who made up his mind about Europe a long time ago and refuses to re-examine his convictions in the light of the facts because he is afraid he'll find what he doesn't want to find.

On the other hand, it is perfectly correct to say that his course undoubtedly is giving Adolf Hitler a great deal of satisfaction. It is manifest that Hitler doesn't want Britain to get American aid in sufficient quantities and in time to defeat his plans. Wheeler is doing his level best to block and delay that aid, just as he tried to delay the conscription bill. Whatever his motive, therefore, he is inevitably doing Hitler great service. To say it is simply to state an obvious truth.

 


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