The Charlotte News

Thursday, April 27, 1939

FIVE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: "A Quack Claim" is worth some thought in conjunction with the present debate regarding the prospect of deporting illegal immigrants back to Mexico. Other than the inevitable bureaucratic nightmare involved in that prospect, it obviously would not help business or employment in this country a whit but rather would simply remove a lower scale consumer, nevertheless one buying food, fuel and other basic commodities of daily living which contribute to a healthy economy--that is, should we ever anytime soon return to such a thing after the tax cut of 2001 which gave back the surplus so you could buy that extra large tv to hear and see all the good news since.

"'Initiation Fees'" refers to a spot of ground not far from which, in the Pennsylvania countryside, became on September 11, 2001 the "Dream Highway" for some madmen--a dream selflessly steered into the ground by those determined not to see that recklessly selfish dream ever thrive or roll down Pennsylvania Avenue.

"Initiation Fees"

Pennsylvania Farmers Object To Paying To Work

Farmers and laborers put on a show near Somerset, Pa., yesterday, where a link of Pennsylvania's "Dream Highway" is being built. They moved along the line of operations chasing scabs off the job and in general behaving as though they were strikers and pickets, hence exempt (or so strikers and pickets seem to assume) from the laws against breaching the peace.

And they will get no sympathy from us, who believe ardently in order. At the same time, they seem to have had some justification. The construction company which was building the road had signed a closed-shop agreement with the several AFL unions concerned, which meant that only union members could be employed. The fee for being initiated into the union for common laborers was $15. A strenuous objection against having to pay to work was what outraged these local laborers and moved them to take to the warpath.

The practice of initiation fees is not at all unusual where labor unions are dominant. Sometimes the fee runs up into such real money that non-union members cannot afford to take the job. Stories have come out of Washington, which has been the most prosperous city of the land during the depression, of $250 initiation fees as the price of working on Government projects.

The worst part of it is that the Government--the New Deal, that is--has deliberately set out to make organized labor an instrument of Federal policy (consult the Wagner Act). And having invoked organized labor as an instrument of policy, it has constantly refused to put any restriction whatsoever on the practices in has thus invested with the force of law, or even to examine them. Employers may not do anything to discourage unions, but unions may do as they please, even to the point of charging extensively for the right to work.

Rumania's Oil

Figures Explain Why Hitler So Craves It

Everybody knows vaguely that Hitler wants Rumania because of the oil there. But just how much does he need it? By way of The Baltimore Evening Sun we get the answer from Mr. M. A. ap Rhys Pryce (correct, Mr. Linotyper; the man is a Welshman), himself writing in The London Times

According to Mr. Rhys Pryce's figures, Germany herself annually produces only 1,300,000 barrels of oil, plus 18,000,000 barrels of related fuels. Her annual consumption however, is 53,000,000 barrels of which 27,300,000 barrels is used as motor fuel, and 15,000,000 as gas and motor oil. That leaves a deficit to be imported of 35,700,000 barrels in peace times. In war time it would probably be greater.

And Rumania? Rumania's annual production of crude oil at present is 48,500,000 barrels. And of that she uses only 14,220,000 barrels at home, leaving 34,980,000 barrels for export. Compare that with the figures above, and you'll see that it almost fills the hole in Germany's needs. And, of course, the oil wells of Rumania are as yet only partly exploited.

There, then, you have the reason why Adolf wants Rumania and means to get it. Says Mr. Rhys Pryce:

"With control of the Rumanian oil fields Germany can fight a long war; without such control she cannot keep her mechanized land, sea and air forces in the field for more than a few months, and she will be drawing on storage from the very start of hostilities."

A Sound View

Shall We Cripple Britain In Favor Of The Axis?

Dorothy Thompson's recommendation to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Neutrality Act be repealed in toto will probably set off a tremendous howl from the isolationists. But it has the support of Walter Lippman and many of the other better informed observers, as well as nearly all ranking naval officers. And it seems to us to have the support of sound common sense, as well.

The plain fact is that if we reenact the present bill, or go further and pass such a bill as that proposed by Nye, Borah, Clark, Ham Fish & Co., we shall not be neutral at all but actively pro-Axis. For the thing goes entirely outside international law to deprive England of one of the great advantages which belongs to her through the possession of greater sea power--the fair certainty of being able to secure from abroad what everyone knows she is unable to produce at home.

And the crippling of England in favor of the Axis runs exactly counter to what the overwhelming majority of the American people clearly and unmistakably desire. Moreover, the notion that it will keep us out of war will not at all bear up under analysis. American defense policy has long been based, is at this moment based, on the British Navy as a first line of defense in the Atlantic. If England is crippled, if as a result the Axis wins and takes over the British and French Navies, we are very likely to have at once to abandon the Monroe Doctrine and consent to seeing the Axis Powers established on our borders or to risk a war in both the Atlantic and the Pacific (for Japan will certainly join in) which we will have little chance of winning.

The ban on American passengers traveling in belligerent ships in danger zones might well be continued. And possibly American merchant ships ought to be put on notice that they will travel in such zones at their own risk. But beyond that--any neutrality act is calculated not to aid--but to injure us.

A Quack Claim

Concerning A Scheme To Save The Jobless

The Hon. Bilbo (The Man) addressed the Senate at great length the other day on his favorite idea that it is necessary to remove 12,000,000 Negroes from this country and transport them to some vague African land. The Negroes, he said, or most of them, are in favor of it. That's news, indeed. Liberia was long open to them, with transportation provided; but only a relatively few of them ever took up the opportunity. And all their spokesmen have always bitterly opposed the whole idea of transmigration which various crackpots have peddled at intervals throughout the last hundred years.

But anyhow, said the Hon. Bilbo, whether they want to go or not, they must be got rid of, for by doing it we can solve our unemployment problem. Lookit now--ain't that sump'n? By picking up 12,000,000 consumers of goods and throwing them out of the country we are going to increase employment! But just how are the whites who presumably will take over their jobs going to be paid better wages--wages great enough to plug up the huge hole left by their removal?

The whole notion is so screwy, of course, that nobody of the slightest information is going to take it seriously. But it is dangerous for race relationships. For Bilbo does not appeal to men of information, but to men of little education and prejudiced background. And the notion that the Negroes are depriving them of jobs is one exactly calculated to inflame them.

Read At Last

Lothian Confesses He Hadn't Looked At Hitler Until Now

Lord Lothian, who is coming over to be English Ambassador to the United States, has changed his mind. Once upon a time he interviewed Lord Hitler and came away with the news that Der Furious was "a prophetic type of man," and that the notion that he was not heartily for peace was an infamous canard. But now Lothian has had himself photographed with a copy of "Mein Kampf" in front of him, and has to say that the book plainly shows that Hitler's objective is to remake "a large part of the world by force."

That book was published in the German so long ago as 1926. An English translation was published as early as 1933. Yet Lord Lothian only now discovers what it proposes. Which seems to indicate that Lord Lothian has only now got around to reading it.

Lord Lothian has been very powerful in the councils of the Chamberlain Government--is popularly credited with having had a great deal to do with the "appeasement" policy. It may therefore be suspect that he is typical--that the Chamberlain government is in general only now getting around to reading "Mein Kampf." Such a supposition explains much. But it remains an astonishing one.

 


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