The Charlotte News

Wednesday, November 30, 1938

FIVE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: As to "The Constant Factor", it is probably to be greatly counter-argued that all the boys are doing, too, in seeking higher and higher education, is to make themselves fit for some good woman. (Of course sometimes, some of both fly too high, such that they become overly Mercurial in nature, flying so close to the sun that their wax-wings melt down on occasion--yet, they being of that messenger Bird, Iris, as strange as it may seem, we must have some of those critters too as it helps to protect against the Not-see types, the vampyre bats and copperheads.) One might return to old Remy Gourmont for some further enlightenment upon some of those issues, or, Havelock Ellis, or more to the point, old Henry Mencken, as you may read here.

Or, if not your flavor, you could just try something like Joan Didion's White Album.

For our part, we suggest a thorough familiarity with music and poetry on both sides of the chromosomal why-be-dies axes, and not to go describing them as axes of evol.

Here's a query we have been seeking to understand ever since some of the boys complained about it in the firstest grade, and seemed to run for the hills in response, some of them: What in Hades are cooties? Never seen one. Have you? If so, you might suggest yourself to the world of one-dimensional arts and sciences, think yourself up a nice peace symbol, such as that of the fylfot cross, get yourself about a third of the people on your side through a lot of high boot-kicking tactics, inveigh mightily against the leftists by proclaiming you will reform and prevent their evol from coming to power, hold things over the heads of the aging leaders of the country, find yourself a good and mean dog with which to be your constant companion, build a network of bunkers, burn down the legislative assembly building and blame it on your political opponents, the leftists, and declare your self font of all wisdom, der Fuehrer. Then be sure and get yourself some secret police to infiltrate and some boot-kicking thugs to maintain law and order, and voila! It's springtime. All cooties are gone. (Incidentally, we suspect that some t'others just used the tactic as a scare method, to ward off the other, more gullible boys so they could get the goodies, not having a care in Hades about cooties in fact, knowing them to be pure figs of their mamas 'n' papas. But that's for higher learnings.)

"Two-Color Scheme" imparts more on the subject, worthy not only as to examination for the sake of understanding them, but of course, also as an understanding of how to avoid becoming them.

"Hedge and Promise" points up just how little difference typically exists, and probably ought to exist between the policies of one party and the others in a free and democratic society. Why is that, one might query. Well, presumably, the policies of such a society, when maintained appropriately with an active Fourth Estate and active minds being shaped within liberal institutions of higher learning, open to all viewpoints, and not awarding A's for praising der Fuehrer as opposed to examining the causes of the left, while degrading anyone who might, should inevitably be enacting a system of laws and policies which take into account the viewpoints of all citizens, even that of substantial minorities, reaching some inevitable compromise in implementation thereof to so accommodate for the amelioration of the whole. Consequently, one would naturally have to be suspect of someone who comes along with a lot of ideas of throwing out the whole of the old, the baby with the bathwater, and starting over from scratch.

A good emblem of such a thing might be found from the fact that Barry Goldwater, while starting his campaign for the presidency in 1963 favored tossing TVA, among other things he proposed, probably including a return to the silver standard. Ka-boom.

President Kennedy, speaking before the AFL-CIO, November 15, 1963, stated that he favored, to stimulate employment, a tax cut, and suggested that doing away with TVA and such programs enacted by the New Deal would only exacerbate unemployment, at that time a critical concern, among other things, in the domestic policy. The 4,000 members of the labor organization jamming the American Hotel in New York to listen to him cheered him actively. They gave a tepid response the previous Thursday to another of the leading candidates for the Republican nomination in 1964, Nelson Rockefeller, espousing a good bit more sensible and moderate position than that propounded then by Mr. Goldwater, though he would later moderate his views and become more sensible, too. Which also goes to show that people change some with time, when not so pressed for impressing some over-eager folks with little sense more than to get in out of the hard rain.

In any event, because of a few Nazis and idiots of the same general variety, raising their umbrellas and lifting their smart little hands straight up, in something seeming for its repetition to be other than merely a friendly wave, (not to mention all those ladies in raincoats and scarves on a bright, sunny day, though we know it drizzled some that morning, but...) from the crowd in apparent Nazi-salutes and the like, in their apparent arap-spychoanalytic, self-appointed dixonite nonsense, of numbers and mono-syllabic stratification, in short, particle-adoring non-hiking champions of knowing the difference between good 'n' evol, we never got to hear those particular debates in 1964.

They were lost in the torrent of press in the week to follow.

The week before, the President's foreign aid bill was passed by the Senate 63-17, though, according to its Senate sponsor, J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, "The bill has been emasculated now to the point of non-recognition of what it is," it having been cut from its proposed amount of 4.5 billion down to 3.7. President Kennedy had said that cutting of the bill in such fashion could tie his hands unduly in implementing foreign policy. The bill, in its original form, had the support of both Republican minority Senate leader, Everett Dirksen, and majority leader, Mike Mansfield. The final passage came after the withdrawal of a proposed amendment to the bill, to allow the Export-Import Bank to guarantee loans made to Iron Curtain countries, those countries within the Communist sphere of influence, satellites, for the enabling of grain sales from the United States. Ten Democrats opposed the bill. Among them were Senators Sam J. Ervin and B. Everett Jordan of North Carolina, and Harry Flood Byrd and A. Willis Robertson of Virginia. These plus the other Southern Democrats opposing the bill had held it up as a bargaining chip over the President's Civil Rights bill, the one having to do with the Commerce Clause and Mrs. Murphy, then languishing. It was of course passed later, and signed into law by President Johnson on July 2, 1964. Which is why you do not have to worry about such silliness as what the color of a person's skin is who is occupying the room next to you in a motel or eating at the next table over in a public restaurant which operate in interstate commerce. Which also goes to show that people change.

Parenthetically, we might note that in the case of Sam J. Ervin, at least, it might have been, as he was not, we think, really a segregationist, certainly not a race-baiter, that his view on the Civil Rights bill, said to have emanated from his strict constuctionist philosophy, when boiled down, instead probably came from the same sort of understanding which was preached, probably by Cash, regularly in these columns in 1938--that is, that if left alone, given the progress being made in the South on the reported lynching record, the good Southern folks, would, on sound religious principles, solve their lesser lights' problems and provide ultimately an understanding to effect integration over time, without bloodshed, which was reasonably believed would be surely to follow as long as the Hotspurs were still hotly ignorant of higher learning.

Perhaps, we might make bold to say, that the Senator, when he was a circuit judge riding about that area of North Carolina, including sitting in Charlotte on occasion, during this time might have read a little of The News editorial column, himself, and been influenced some by it. Or he might have even stopped by the offices there in the Tower on occasion to chat with the staff, as apparently some of the judges did, to share bantering opinions and help to shape it himself some.

Whatever the case, by the 1960's, it was coldly self-evident to most in the country that time had long since come to effect that change, long overdue since the founding, when a deal was struck with the Southern states to enable a Union, as opposed to a confederacy of loosely governed states with the states having each their own will to govern themselves, apart from a central government; hence the Supremacy Clause.

Thus, strict construction really indicated by 1954 that, for instance, schools should be integrated. Yet, they were not being so integrated "with all deliberate speed" by 1960, as intended. People could not vote in many places without a poll tax or even a literacy test, which was itself skewed to disallow people who were not deemed sufficiently educated to the ways and means of voting in accordance with the supreme will of the white clubbers, the local ruling elite. And so on.

The violence, of course, being so ritualistic in parts of the society, a literal blood sacrifice to the deil, witchcraft, old rituals taken over from certain native tribes deep down in them thar woods, if you really want to penetrate far enough, was so ingrained in some families generationally, that the blood was going to flow sooner or later, to satiate the bloodthirst somewhere, whether by warfare, or locally, regardless of the effort to change slowly or not.

It is altogether probable, therefore, that Sam J. Ervin, for one, understood that himself on November 22, 1963, and thereafter, had it confirmed even more on April 4, 1968 and again on June 5-6, 1968, such that he realized that the premises of 1938, while perhaps reasonably optimistic then, could not subsist any longer with changing conditions, that delay and delay and delay would only begat more delay for the sake of delay, not for the sake of change by slower methods than a Force Bill, with all its problems. It was a Southerner, after all, Andrew Jackson, who instituted the first Force Bill, as we have pointed out earlier.

Oh, some might still say:

"Teach not thy lips such scorn, for they were made
For kissing, lady, not for such contempt.
If thy revengeful heart cannot forgive,
Lo, here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword;
Which if thou please to hide in this true bosom.
And let the soul forth that adoreth thee,
I lay it naked to the deadly stroke,
And humbly beg the death upon my knee."

Or, in other words:

--"I gave them the sword and they twisted it in with relish."

Ah, but we could always then retort, could we not, that so we did, Maddog Earl of Gloucester. And quite rightly, boy. Quite, quite, rightly.

Not merely some "third-rate burglary", you see, Lady.

Or, do we?

How's our temperature today?

Anyway, we should mention that we have been permitted perhaps some very special perception into some of this stuff; in our case we should remark that it is in large part because a little boy ten years old, a close friend of ours, kept a scrapbook of those dark days, and has kept it through all these days since. To it, he committed clippings from the local newspaper where he lived and from one where he visited that Sunday, as his parents returned their other son to his studies at the local state university. Strange thing is, that without even being prompted by anyone, the little boy kept all these clippings not only from that dark weekend and Monday and into Tuesday and a few days beyond, but also, most impressively, from a few of the newspapers of the previous several days, about a week before it all, those dark days. Interesting, since, by his own admission, at the time, he really didn't much have the foggiest as to what was meant by the finer notions among all that little squiggly print in those earlier days' editions, though he could read pretty well. He understood only too well, though, he says, what that print in the latter dark days meant. Shy little boy he was, with a cowlick sometimes on bad hair days; and so he felt he understood, he says, other somewhat shy people who had cowlicks, too. Didn't talk much in school; but after school, sometimes he would. So, we, after all these years, thank the little boy for his dedication in those days. He learned a lot in those days, he tells us, especially those days, as dark as they were. He says that he wished they had not been, but that one can only learn from such troubling days and, from it, try to do better and encourage others to do likewise.

Incidentally, here is some of our impressionistic view. We call it "Stonewalling Mosaic in Cleft D or Archers With Falchions at Gettysgrub", though Hieronymous Bosch would no doubt count it as art only in Hell.

Examining a First

Witlings may defame the latest North Carolina first, and we must confess that right off the bat it looks like an exceedingly sordid commentary on a state of large church membership and professed morality. But anybody with some comprehension of what is actually taking place will understand that the fact of North Carolina's inordinate syphilis case rate represents most striking progress.

It is, to be sure, somewhat startling to find that New York State, with 13,000,000 people, reported only 5,283 cases of syphilis in September as against 5,749 in North Carolina with 3,125,000 people. It isn't particularly comforting, either, to observe that in cases reported per 10,000 inhabitants, North Carolina is away at the top of the list with 16.46, as contrasted with Virginia's 4.74, Kentucky's 3.01 and Minnesota's even 1.00.

But the explanation of North Carolina's evident disgrace is not, necessarily, that its people are more venereally deceased than the rest of their countrymen, though doubtless with our large Negro population we can hold our own with the worst. No, it is that North Carolina, with an active health board, a thumping donation from the Smith Reynolds Foundation and a Federal appropriation received in common with the rest of the states, has at last begun to find out just how prevalent syphilis is and to bring deceased persons to the attention of private physicians and public health authorities.

Since the first step in eradicating syphilis is to haul the dark disease into the light, the statistic of cases reported in North Carolina is actually a highly cheering piece of information.

Two-Color Scheme

David Clark... in a brief talk (introducing another speaker before the Charlotte Rotary Club yesterday), declared the world has never seen such a propaganda campaign as the anti-Hitler, anti-German campaign now underway. He characterized it as a campaign of Communism, but declared "I hold no brief for Hitler..."

Well, that is to take in a lot of territory--to suggest that people who raise their voice against the obvious crimes of Hitlerism, from the President of the United States down, are under the influence of the Communist viewpoint. A very great many people have been led by their fear of Communism into thinking in the same sort of black and white terms--into thinking that Fascism is really a defense of private capitalism against Communism. The German people were certainly led into elevating Hitler on the theory, and so were the Italians led into elevating Mussolini. But whoever has actually conned the record knows today what a shock they let themselves in for. Both Germany and Italy are rapidly being bolshevized with a bolshevism that is almost as bad as Russia's. The only essential difference that remains between the two systems internally is one of name.

But it is a pity that the Germans never bothered to read "Mein Kampf" very carefully--as it is a pity that the Italians never bothered to read Mussolini's utterances carefully--as it is a pity that Americans pass judgment in the case without reading both carefully. For all along both dictators have consistently said that, while Communism is their proximate enemy, their ultimate enemy is democracy. There, they say, is the breeding ground of Communism, and so to make the world safe for their own system of bolshevism, democracy, and with it private capitalism, which can only be subsisted in the framework of democracy, must be destroyed. We trust that Dave Clark doesn't hold a brief for that.

Brazil Faces North

One country in South America which the United States probably is not going to have any trouble in lining up for a common front in this hemisphere, is Brazil. Once it was not so. As the head and front of the so-called ABC powers, Brazil used to be the best suspecter of the "Yankee imperialist" in South America. But since Munich she is reported to have become thoroughly alarmed about the designs of Adolf Hitler. And with good reason. She is one of the richest prizes in the world. And if Hitler should succeed in securing an air and naval base on the coast of West Africa, she would be in a most uncomfortable position, for from Pernambuco to the African coast is no more than 1,500 miles.

As a result, sentiment in the country, which down to now has been fairly friendly toward the Nazis, has been rapidly undergoing a change. When Adolf Hitler's face is flashed on a movie screen in those parts now, boos and hisses break out. And the government itself is taking active steps to see that no more than such Nazi rebellions as that of last year break out. In all the towns with large German populations, barracks are being built and artillery planted.

The Nazis are conducting a highly organized propaganda throughout South America to attempt to discredit the Lima conference, but in the case of Brazil it seems to be foredoomed to failure.

Hedge and Promise

Vermont's recently re-elected Senator, E. W. Gibson, predicted today that WPA would be retained if the Republican Party wins the Presidency in 1940, but that "top-heavy politics" would be removed. He said the higher WPA offices probably would be placed under civil service... --Associated Press report

That is interesting for several reasons. In the first place, it is the first hedge by a Republican to put in its appearance. All along the leaders of that party had been proclaiming that, if only they were brought back to power, business would shortly get so good that relief employment would no longer be necessary--certainly a goal to be devoutly hoped for. But, now here, just as soon as they get their toe inside the door, comes one of them to proclaim that, after all it isn't going to be so, and that relief work is here to stay.

Only--only they are going to reform, these Republicans. They are probably going to put it under civil service. Probably. Well, and just how probably is probably? No one can say with absolute certainty. But there is evidence like this: that, though both parties have made noises about civil service in every platform for the last 40 years, the civil service has grown with astonishing slowness--and that neither the Republican nor Democratic Congress, including the latest ones, has ever willingly given up to civil service any portion of the Federal bureaucracy which was particularly fat in patronage. And that the WPA is probably fatter in patronage than any other part of the bureaucracy ever heard of down to date...

The Constant Factor

"Says Education Can Be Big Help in Marriage," does Mrs. Ogden Reid, trustee of Barnard College and lively vice-president of The New York Herald Tribune. Says further:

"For the sake of making marriage more successful, of enabling men to be more attractive, more interesting, girls need an even break in mental equipment. My best wish for any boy's future happiness is that he may marry a girl whose mind can challenge his own."

Times change, and the changing times have lifted woman from the status of an adornment or chattel, depending on her social rank, to something approaching or exceeding equality, depending again on the circle she moves in. But one thing that doesn't change is people's ability to rationalize their desires, to support them with all manner of cogent reasons and firm convictions.

Mrs. Ogden Reid wants equality of education and opportunity of freedom for women: ergo, she rationalizes it into something good for men. But long years ago--about fifty, to be inexact--an editor of the struggling Charlotte News, wanting according to the manner of the times, as shall appear, indulged himself in a bit of rationalization. Wrote he in 1888:

"Sir William Gull comes to the defense of higher education for women with the statement that a University education, such as girls get at Newnham and Girnton, makes them and their children healthier: and that the percentage of childless marriages is less with educated women."

Education for women, it seems, has remained throughout a chief aid to successful marriages while the definition of successful marriages has been revised completely. Only one thing, declining males may note, has not been changed. The girls, though they find new reasons for having their way, still argue quite plausibly that they are only trying to make themselves worthy of some good man.

 


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