The Charlotte News

Saturday, August 20, 1938

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: Scarlett, read this. The Observer has once again spoken my mind plainly and in exemplary and the most accurate manner sustainable to the human complex of sensorial receptors imaginable. Indeed, such shenanigans as reported in Kentucky of late knell the end of democracy and freedom in our once fair land where we were free to have our property without interference by the Devil's Linkinism and this foul, profane concept, this abomination to humankind in bond to our chattel, abolitionism, which is nothing more, Scarlett, than absolute extirpation of our way of life. Yes, Scarlett, but, I say it yet again, and mark it well, for it is not to be denied: Victory is at hand!

"Moompixures": Sal, na 19, potash 11 bewoo w.

Other crosses on the moor lay here.

What it takes in farms and markets to make a model county, Mecklenburg has. The balance between industry and agriculture existing throughout the whole Piedmont section of the Carolinas is ideal, in many respects, as though it had been planned that way; and this balance ought to make of this region economically one of the favorite spots of the whole country. But the ideal is far from being attained.

Somehow, coordination between agriculture and commercial interests has always been lacking. You would think that with a supply to market and market to supply, the two would coincide, automatically, but it doesn't work that way. It takes direction, investment, planning, management, information; and since this is everybody's business, it has been for a long time nobody's particular business.

A concerted effort to better this state of affairs is now being made by the Agricultural Department of the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce. The Carolinas Farm Congress here today, with Governor Hoey speaking prior to practical discussion of farm problems by experts in their lines, is a manifestation of the interest that is being shown both by commercial and agricultural proprietors. An even more tangible contribution lies in the offing--the erection of a $150,000 packing plant offering a constant market for livestock and poultry.

While Hitler held the threat of his mobilized armies over the head of France and yesterday twisted the British lion's tail by clapping its Austrian passport officer into jail and curtly declining explanation, his ally, Mussolini, proceeded to do his part toward intimidating the English and the French, also. First, his airplanes which fly the colors of Franco destroyed two more British ships, one of them in the open sea, and bound not for Spain but Algiers. And, far more important, he dramatically flew his own airplane to Pantellaria and back and reversed everything that he and the accommodating Mr. Chamberlain had been maintaining, by announcing that Pantellaria has been made into one of the greatest fortresses of the world and that, as a threat to Italy, Malta no longer exists.

Pantellaria is a small island lying in the narrow neck of the Mediterranean between Sicily and Africa, about 30 miles southeast of a straight line drawn from the Tunisian cape to Marsala, Sicily's westernmost town. Northwest 150 miles lies Italy's Sardinia, with its great southern bays furnishing perfect bases for naval operations. Southeast 150 miles lies Malta. On the north, Pantellaria is distant from the coast of Sicily about 60 miles, on the south from that of Africa about 40. And through the two narrow channels thus created must pass every British freighter coming up from Suez, every British freighter bound to the Mesopotamian pipe lines, to Palestine, to Egypt and to India. Through those channels, too, must pass the British navy for operations in the eastern Mediterranean and the support of Malta. And, if the stories which Signor Mussolini boastfully confirms are true, then both Pantellaria's north coast and the coast of Sicily are now bristling with 10- and 14-inch rifles, while the 40-mile stretch of the southern channel is covered by the same sort of guns from the south coast of Pantellaria.

Dire news for England, surely. Maybe the combined British and French navies can still blast their way through and confirm their mastery of Mare Nostrum. But, considering the extraordinary strategic advantage afforded Italy by the combination of Sardinia, Sicily and Pantellaria, considering the German and Italian guns behind Gibraltar, considering the Italian base at Majorca, and remembering what happened in the Dardanelles during the last war, no one can any longer be sure.

Politics in WPA, everybody condemns. It's plainly wrong. WPA is spending relief money, charity money. And for it to use any of that money for political purposes would be highly improper.

By the same token, politics in RFC is despicable. RFC too is a relief organization, with business men as its principal clients. For RFC employees to go down the line for an administration candidate would certainly raise up a howl. On the theory that what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, for RFC employees to go down the line for an anti-administration candidate would be equally reprehensible, not to say intrepid. And it is conceded that Edgar Dunlap, discharged counsel for the RFC in Georgia, was taking an active, directional part in the campaign of Senator George for re-election.

But instead of being an RFC employee, Dunlap was a lawyer on retainer. He didn't have to punch RFC's time clock. He was available for consultations and advice, just as the firm of Whitlock, Dockery & Shaw is to the Charlotte branch of the RFC. And suppose RFC disengaged this firm because its members, about the acceptability of whose services there was no complaint, were actively supporting Hancock, say, as against the complacent New Dealer Reynolds--that would be an exact analogy.

If Atlanta is frothing at RFC's arbitrary discharge of Dunlap because he was supporting the man the administration is out to get, who can blame it? The administration has earned a rebuke for itself. When it engages independent counsel, it does not buy the right to tell them to be for this candidate or for that candidate or for no candidate. It cannot properly use its power to employ lawyers for any political gagging whatsoever.

The attitude of Judge Ferdinand Pecora in the New York trial of James J. Hines, Tammany chieftain accused of taking bribes for providing protection for Dutch Schultz's multi-million-dollar policy racket, is, somehow, a little startling.

Hines, like anybody else, must be presumed innocent until he is proved guilty. But to threaten Prosecutor Dewey with dismissal of his case unless he submits "definite evidence linking Hines with the racket"--well, for heaven's sakes, what is definite evidence? The man George Weinberg has testified explicitly that Hines was paid $1,000 in cash and in his presence promised from $500 to $1,000 a week, and that moreover the sum was, to his knowledge, regularly set aside from the policy "take." Big Joe (Spasm) Ison has testified to the last, too. And a number of witnesses have testified that the Tammany magistrates showed an extraordinary eagerness to dismiss the cases brought against them (the witnesses) in connection with the policy racket. Moreover, Dewey is known to have Dixie Davis, lawyer for the racket, waiting to testify against Hines.

The case is far from conclusive as it stands, and may not be conclusive when Davis testifies. The character of all witnesses is bad, and that must be taken into account. But it all seems nonsense to suggest that the evidence is not definite. Nor is there much ground for thinking that Dewey is unduly wasting time in insisting on sketching in the whole story of the workings of the racket. For the jurors are presumably not too familiar with it, and probably need to understand these things to understand the charges brought against Hines.

To say the least, Pecora, who himself came to prominence as a prosecutor for the Federal Government, and who owes his job to Tammanyman Jim Farley, shows an impatience which is hardly in keeping with the role of judge.