The Charlotte News

Monday, November 7, 1938

FIVE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: also on the page today:

These Words We Use

By Rowe Weaver

Iceberg

On a sweltering day in mid-Summer you might be glad to see a great chunk of ice ease itself into your backyard, but if you were bobbing about in a boat a thousand miles from home-plate and saw an "iceberg" looming before you, it might definitely cool your enthusiasm for ice in the raw. And if it turned out to be a papa berg, full grown and possibly a lot overweight, ready to scowl you out of existence, you'd see quickly why to the Swedish "isberg" means "an ice mountain." And with them you'd agree that the other side of this mountain fails to interest you, except from a nice safe distance.

Site Ed. Note: We prefer the Caribbean.

Once in 71 Years

Johnson C. Smith University--we wonder if the people of the community know that it is a $3,000,000, A-grade institution with an enrollment of 358 students and more than 3,000 graduates--is setting out to build a much-needed dormitory costing $125,000. The Presbyterian Board of National Missions--the Northern branch of the denomination--is prepared to hand over $67,000 of the sum, and of the remainder Charlotte will be asked to contribute $25,000.

This is the first time in the school's 71 years that money has been requested of the citizens. It will not be, however, the first time that gifts have been made. Colonel William R. Myers, distinguished citizen in 1867 gave eight acres of land on the Beatty's Ford Road, the present valuable site. Zeb Vance, while he was Senator after the war, praised the school and gave it $50 (Zeb was never rich in this world's goods). In 1924, James B. Duke, another Charlotte citizen, made a thumping gift of $1,300,000 as an endowment. And occasionally Charlotteans have made other donations, causing President McCrorey to say in the history of Johnson C. Smith:

"Providentially the institution was located in the midst of some of the best people in the country. It has always had the goodwill, the cooperation and hearty support of these people. This has meant much to the success of the school."

The people of the city have had a pretty strenuous year insofar as campaigns for funds go, and their generosity has been tested and found not wanting. The impulse to give to Johnson C. Smith will be strong, we know, and we sincerely trust that subscriptions can be found to match.

The War Lords Fume

"Peace for our time" was in full flower yesterday. In Weimar, once the home of the spirit of Goethe, Adolf Hitler cracked, amidst roars of German laughter, "The umbrella-carrying type of politician is dead!" Ostensibly, of course, it was a thrust at the leaders of the dead German republic. But does anybody doubt that it was also an unprecedented taunt directed at Mr. Bumble of Downing Street--and his surrender at Munich?

From that polite beginning he went on to say that so long as democracy existed he had his doubts that disarmament and peace can ever be brought about--but only if all the world was ruled by totalitarian governments could that aim be really attained. Which is to say that he coolly recognized, what is correct, that he cannot go forward with the unlimited expansion he contemplates so long as the democracies, and particularly the United States, continue to exist. And then he is bitterly angry over the Graham announcement that Washington means to defend the Monroe Doctrine to the last ditch, and that if mass-production of death machines is to be the game, this nation, which is the overwhelmingly great master of mass-production technique, means to be prepared to play it to the hilt.

The same dark anger flared forth in Tokyo, too, with the threat of the journal Kokumin, the mouthpiece of the brass hats, that if the United States insists on maintaining the Open Door in China, "retaliatory measures" will be taken--quite probably a thinly-veiled threat not only to throw American interests bodily out of China but also to seize the Philippines.

But there is a kind of comfort for us in all these threats and demands. Behind all this anger undoubtedly lies fear at the spectacle of the United States preparing to use all its enormous resources to arm. That anger and that fear are the best proof that we are really on the course which promises to make us secure and keep the peace in our orbit of the world.

Three Races to Watch

All over North Carolina tomorrow, as in the rest of the nation except egregious Maine, the voters will proceed to the polls and cast their ballots for a number state and county officers eleven Representatives in Congress and one Senator. As a rule in North Carolina, when the Democrats hold their primary, the election is over; and there's nothing to indicate that this year will be any different.

Several contests, however, are going to be more interesting than usual. In the Eighth Congressional District, by ordinary heavily Democratic, considerable disaffection in the party is believed to have been engendered by the Deane-Burgin wrangle. If all is forgiven in Richmond County, whose man was displaced after being certified as the rightful winner, the Democrats are safe. If not, a Mr. Jones who has the distinction of being the only Republican solicitor in North Carolina, may come up with the greater distinction of being the only Republican Congressman from North Carolina.

In the Sixth Congressional District, voters are being urged to write in the name of Oscar Barker, second man in the primary, over whose head a Democratic committee, on the death of the nominee, went to select an astonished Chapel Hill pharmacist. Write-in campaigns seldom get anywhere. This one probably won't.

In the state at large, Republican Charlie Jonas has conducted an energetic campaign against "Their Robert" Reynolds (see the following) for the United States Senate. There is little doubt of the outcome. Interest centers only in the size of Reynolds' majority which will not be anything like the 200,000-300,000 predicted by the Chairman of the State Democratic Committee.

Record of Service

"You know that I am anxious to see you win on Tuesday. Your record of service deserves the support of the voters and I have no hesitancy in saying that the interests of the nation and your state can be served best by your return to the Senate. My best wishes for your success."

Thus the Hon. James Aloysius Farley, Postmaster General of the United States and Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, in a telegram to the Hon. Robert Rice Reynolds, Senator from North Carolina.

Of course, it's all a formula. And Jim would recite it to anybody who wore the Democratic Party label, though it were Dopey the Dwarf or Toar the Giant--though the candidate were deaf, dumb, blind, spavined, and afflicted with dementia praecox, running fits, kleptomania, and congenital idiocy.

But just by way of keeping the facts straight, we herewith set down the "record of service" of the great man Jim addresses. Thus:

1--He has dutifully voted for all principal Roosevelt domestic policy save one.

2--That one was the President's veto of the raid on the Treasury by veterans. Robert voted to override that veto.

3--He has authored a single piece of legislation which, strangely enough, would deal with aliens. Robert's own state is 99 44-100% native-born.

4--He has established a record as the travelingest man who presently sits in the Senate.

Octroi*

It is interesting to observe the ground on which the South Carolina Supreme Court last week invalidated the ordinances in many South Carolina towns, imposing license fees of from $50 to $75 on out-of-state dealers selling goods by truck to firms within their limits. That ground was that the ordinances "were not adopted in the exercise of police power." The opinion went on to add that they would "only be legal, if the General Assembly authorized them."

But would they really be illegal even then? The Constitution of the United States clearly and explicitly denies to states the right to impose tariffs either as against foreign countries or other states within the Union. And though this tax sets up to be a license tax, it is in fact no more than a disguised protective care. Its purpose, as everyone knows, is to keep out-of-state merchants from competing with those of South Carolina.

This tendency of the states to impose "license taxes" for the purpose of protecting local firms from competition has been growing rapidly during the last fifteen years. But it is dangerous. Carried to its logical conclusion, it would turn the nation into a maze of tariff barriers, and completely paralyze interstate commerce. What is plainly needed is a comprehensive decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, which would put an end to the business once for all.

*[Service: Octroi--a tax imposed on goods coming into a town.--Editors, The News.]

 


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