The Charlotte News

Monday, June 19, 1939

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: "Tails Out" makes a fashion statement, contrasting royal morning dress with the young men of Charlotte. We are glad that since 1939, such young men, both royal and non-royal alike, wear exclusively proper attire, morning, afternoon, and evening--as the news tells us constantly. Boys will be boys, and girls, girls, we suppose, in most every age. But next time, please, leave off the harrying armbands.

Whatever The Merits Of This Plan, It Won't Do What Is Claimed

The substitution of profit-sharing for the wage system recommended by a sub-committee of the Senate Finance Committee composed of Senators Herring of Iowa and Vandenberg of Michigan, may have a good deal to be said for it. But, after the most cursory glance, it is possible to guess that it won't do the thing they say it will do.

That might dispose of the complaint that wages fall more rapidly than prices when depression comes on and rise more slowly than prices when prosperity begins to return. But it plainly isn't going to dispose of the "ravenous appetite"--on either side. All it will do is to shift the dispute from the question of what constitutes a "fair" wage to that of what constitutes a "fair" share of the profits before labor and capital. It is curious how men like Vandenberg, who spends about half his time denouncing Utopias, readily believe in such Utopias as they themselves desire and as they themselves fashion. It is perhaps a gloomy thought, but, the facts of human nature being what they are, the notion that men can ever absolutely agree on what division of the cake is "fair" is probably as futile as the dream that presently all men will have as much brains as Albert Einstein.

Typifying A Coarse Bit Of Politics In The New Deal

Despite the assertion of Governor Rivers of Georgia that the $36,000 fee to Chip Robert's engineering firm was solely for architectural work, Mr. Ickes seems well within his rights and the proprieties in ordering PWA not to pay it. Chip, after the young hotheaded Representative Delacey Allen had accused him of stealing the taxpayers' money, frankly told the Georgian that a part of his service consisted of "contacting Federal agencies to obtain funds." To appraise that service, one must remember that in addition to being head of an engineering firm, Chip is Secretary of the Democratic National Committee.

It may be, of course, when Chip comes around soliciting funds for clients of his engineering firm, that all the doormen at all the offices where the Government hands out money are careful to announce him, "Mr. L. W. Robert, secretary of the Georgia engineering firm," and not to, Mr. L. W. Robert, secretary of the Democratic National Committee." It may be that all the heads and sub-heads of lending agencies, who owe their own jobs to the favor of the Democrats, are not at all concerned with Chip's political influence but recognize him only as an astute business man who has made an exceedingly good thing out of the New Deal and the liking Mr. Roosevelt is known to have for him. It may be, we say, but we don't think so.

Indeed, we think it is one of the grossest of all breaches of common ordinary ethics, much more of the High Idealism of this Administration. But, boy, it has been lucrative!

Is It Really Needful For The Lads To Look Like That?

Intelligence from Canada reveals that grateful tailors are thanking King George for a fashion trend toward conservative styles, chalk stripes and checked tweeds. Men, they say, are more conscious of correct morning attire since seeing it at tour ceremonies.

More than ever we are wishing he had come to Charlotte. Perhaps he would have elevated the tone of what the lads are wearing on Tryon Street these hot mornings. Shirts made from large-patterned prints as gaudy as those fat women choose for afternoon parties--and worn, my dear, tail out! Dirty white shoes and apple-green pants cut in pegtop lines. Do the boys want to look like that?

Perhaps they do. King George can be happy in sober tweeds because he need never tire of them. He is constantly called on to wear uniforms gorgeous in scarlet or blue with gold braid and brass buttons. He can at times with perfect propriety put on a shako or an admiral's cocked hat or a jaunty Scotch cap and need not feel disconsolate over the anonymity of a straw sailor. Perhaps the King would even be grateful for a little anonymity.

It is not so with young boys. The nature of the male creature is to strut around and bedeck himself and show off. Not until the past 50 years has it been conventional for him to be conservative in his dress. Though only a few uninhibited souls such as Diamond Jim Brady had dared fly in the face of the convention, the yearning is still there.

It is noticeable that the boys with the cute clothes are very young and seem to be just walking around. When a man can't get a job he still likes to keep his flags flying. But the last thing in the world that looks pretty peeping out from a flowered print is a knotty, hairy arm.

The Three Fascist Witches Make Trouble For The Lion On All Sides, With The Aid Of Our Isolationists

The little brown man who is eternally concerned about saving his face perhaps has good reason, after all. Certainly, he has a colossal cheek. The thing he is now doing at Tientsin is as insolent as anything in modern history. He has no shadow of right in China, has not even declared war so that he can enjoy the rights of a belligerent. But he confesses candidly that he means to throw Britain completely out of the concession at Tientsin, and make her quit aiding Chiang Kai-Shek. Which is to say, he candidly confesses that he is out to destroy British power in the whole East. For Dr. Wellington Koo is probably right in saying that "face" is so important in that part of the world that England is through if she submits. And to add insult to injury, he is not only proceeding to try to starve off 1,500 Britishers, but he is boldly mistreating them, even to the point of stripping the men and manhandling the women when they want to go out of the concession. Once upon a time that would have been exactly equivalent to snuggling up to a den of rattlesnakes.

But the little man seems to feel sure of what he is about. The old lion is at once having a new knot tied in his tail and his whiskers yanked, and in that quandary seems unable to make up his mind to move at all. In Europe, Lord Hitler is busily stirring up trouble in Danzig again, warning that he means to take it and the Pomorze Corridor right of way even if it means war, is again moving great bodies of troops to the Polish frontier. Almost as important is the news that an Italian war fleet is to steam "Orient-ward"--obviously for the purpose of taking up station off Africa to intercept any British fleet moving out to the East if war comes. It is apparent that all these moves have been taken in conjunction by the Fascist powers. And indeed, it is more than probable that Hitler is the prime instigator of it all. He loves nothing so much as surprise, and the world had settled down in the expectation that no new crises were to be expected before August. Moreover, it is to his advantage to move before England can settle her haggling with Russia. And indeed, if he can make England back down, Russia may back away in complete disgust and the proposed alliance be scuttled for good.

What the joker in the deck is, the little brown man tells us quite candidly. It is the United States, or perhaps more accurately the isolationists in the United States. He is sure, he crows triumphantly, that America will not back England in blockading him, and that England cannot do it by herself. At present he is being very polite to Americans in China, though of course he means to throw them out also, as soon as he has disposed of the British.

And he has made no bones about the fact that it is his ultimate purpose to make the Pacific a closed sea on which no ship can ply, beyond Hawaii at least, without his permission. Moreover, it is more than probable that the Administration, which undoubtedly favored a blockade a year ago, still favors it. But the little man seems confident that the isolationists will see to it that nice, kind America won't slap him down however hard he steps on her toes. Maybe they are right. Maybe it is best to let all our enemies triumph over the world and our friends go down, to let the world go plunging to war and disaster when a firm declaration of our intent to intervene might have a good chance to stop it. We don't positively know. But at least, it is plain that the isolationists are a great comfort to the Japs and to Mr. Hitler.