The Charlotte News

Monday, February 12, 1940

FIVE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: Also from the page this date, this little piece:

Norfolk Virginian-Pilot

What would be said of an attempt by the State Board of Education, through legislative fiat, to impose on the approval of Keats and Shakespeare texts for school use the condition that they must first be "amended" to make them conform to the historical, geographical and horological facts of life? Write your own answer. It will be correct.

Very much the same thing is to be said of the proposal to perform a legislative logosectomy on the work of an artist 29 years dead. The honorable course for Virginia is to adopt Bland’s song integrally as he wrote it, defects and all, or leave it alone–to be sung by Virginians or anybody else as each singer prefers.

Further Note: Whatever led us to recapture the past to give you back that bit about the North Carolina Legislature, leading on to question "thereat", leading on to the usage quote, before we had read the piece above, or those below, whatever so led us, once again, we can only attribute understanding, understanding of that something’s prime moving spirit, by reference to the poets in ye.

Ralph McGill, as we have mentioned before, met Cash in Atlanta in March, 1941. Mr. McGill was a friend and confidante later of both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, especially as they sought to tap the pulse, temper and mood of the South.

Things change by strange and wondrous methods sometimes, by a passing of the carbon-gold-selenium torch as ‘twere, that is the chord of life, far beyond our feeble powers either fully to comprehend or to question, on this side of the river.

The 14^th Dalai Lama says that he might determine not again to be incarnated after he departs this life, that it will be by reason of whether the mission of insuring a Tibet free from tyranny is successfully accomplished. Meanwhile, the People’s Republic of China has its own Pantshen Lama who many fear will be sought as spiritual authority for selection of the next Dalai Lama, determined within the People’s Republic, when the present Dalai Lama passes. In that event, of course, there undoubtedly will come an incarnation yet again in the person of the 15^th, not within the People's Republic.

Whatever the case, copper, we opine, is better used for pennies, pipe, wire, and underlying chromium, than for casings.

Anyway, you can call us Al, Tonto, Rocky, or even Lil, should you've a mind so.

Why Tornadoes Seem To Pick On The Poor

Writes Ralph McGill, Executive Editor of the Atlanta Constitution, in a story from Albany:

And certainly they were at Albany. Seventeen persons are dead, and of these sixteen were Negroes.

But it is not really very hard, we suggest, to understand the connection between tornadoes and poverty. You'd think sometimes, certainly, that the tornado almost seems to pick on the poorer sections of a city, and particularly the Negro sections--as though it had a dislike for the poor and Negroes and was devilishly bent on heaping new troubles on their old ones. But in reality tornadoes hit the poor and the wealthy sections of a city quite indifferently.

At Albany Saturday, it struck first in an old residential district on Oglethorpe Avenue and the adjacent streets, unroofed many houses, destroyed one or two, smashed in the fronts of several, killed one white woman. Then it passed on to the central business district, destroyed the upper floor of the town's leading hotel, unroofed many buildings, did millions of dollars of damage. And then--then it swooped down on the Negro district. And, as a reporter for the Atlanta Constitution put it, scattered the shanties there as though they had been dead leaves.

And there, we suspect, is the connection between tornadoes and poverty. The huge gabled old houses on Oglethorpe were not too strong, but anybody who took refuge in say, the hallways on the lower floors was fairly safe. In the business district, the walls were of brick and generally stood. But in the Negro district the frail, tiny little houses went wholly to pieces.

Tornadoes pick on the poor because the poor live in very bad houses.

Pelley Has One Merit His Comrades Lack

Give Mr. William Dudley Pelley, the celebrated Captain-General of the heroic Silver Shirts, one thing: he is considerably more candid than most of his fellow-travelers.

Under the gentle, almost tender, leading of the Hon. Joe Starnes, he came right out and told the Dies Committee that he was "very much so" anti-Semitic. Papa Coughlin and a great many other people we might mention are less forthright. Papa and the rabble which follows him, Papa and his fellow-travelers in all sorts of high places, have a little spiel which runs like this:

"Why, no, no, no, I have no prejudice against the Jews at all. Not as such. But I'm a good American, and there's no doubt that there's a plot of International Jewry to wreck all the governments of the world and take charge of everything. And, that, under God, I must fight."

Moreover, Mr. Pelley went right on to confess openly that he felt "just like the Nazi party in Germany" about the matter, that he had in fact implied at least that the use of force was desirable in order to destroy the Jews.

Papa Coughlin and his fellow travelers, who got the International Jew myth straight out of "Mein Kampf", continually deny that they have any connection or sympathy with Nazism, and hem and haw about the use of force.

Mr. William Dudley Pelley remains a thoroughly unpleasant person, a preacher of hate and brutality. But he is more pleasant than his fellow travelers. At least he has the courage of his nonsense.

How Our Moral Embargo On Aiding Russia Works Now

There was, as we recall it, supposed to be a "moral embargo" in these United States against selling Russia war supplies and so aiding her in the rape of Finland. It was one of the favorite arguments of the Senators who killed the President’s proposed loan to Finland, that it would be very unneutral to refuse to sell Russia and then turn around and openly aid the Finns in a case in which we had not even recognized war to exist.

But how it all works out was admirably demonstrated Wednesday when the Russian freighter Kim came thumping through the Golden Gate into San Francisco harbor, after a swift dash across the Pacific. She rode high out of the water, carried no cargo except--except $5,500,000 in gold. She had obviously been chartered for the sole purpose of fetching in the gold. Why the haste? It appeared that the gold was needed to replenish Soviet supplies on this side which, "because of recent purchases of war supplies, have been seriously depleted."

There you are. But there is more. When the Kim had unloaded her gold, she hastily hauled up her anchor and steamed rapidly away to Manzanillo, Mexico, reputedly to pick up a cargo of American copper there. Other ships have been reported as loading with American copper at the same port in recent days. Copper is used for making bullets.

You see how it is. The copper is paid for with Soviet gold, shipped to a Mexican consignee, promptly transshipped to Russia.

A marvelously effective device, that moral embargo. It enables us to go cheerfully ahead helping to choke Finland to death, while we whisper words of sympathy in the victim’s ear.

Algic Case Still Dogs Capt. Gainard's Steps

It may be that Captain Gainard, of the City of Flint, did actually indulge in deeds which endangered the life of his crew during the ship’s celebrated voyage to Murmansk after seizure by the Nazis. But he himself offers what, in the absence of conclusive proof to the contrary, seems a more likely explanation of the surprising charges lodged against him by the National Maritime Union.

"I was captain of the 'Algic,'" he told the Associated Press. "I'm probably the most unpopular captain in the world so far as some elements are concerned. I expect I will have this sort of thing so long as I go to sea, and I doubt I will go very long, because I will be too much trouble to the shipowners."

The reference is to the fact that he broke a strike on the Algic, when she was in an unprotected South American port and the strike threatened the safety of the ship. Afterwards, several of the strikers were convicted of mutiny and sentenced to jail.

What adds to the probability of Captain Gainard's explanation is that the union alleges that the Russian Government declared the ship free immediately upon its entry in to Murmansk harbor, but that Captain Gainard refused to leave until the Nazi crew was put back aboard. That is not borne out by any other report we have had on the case, and smacks loudly of a Bolo attempt at once to whitewash dear Moscow and to smear the Captain as a secret Nazi sympathizer.

China Moves To Change Methods Of Selection

In far away Tibet, pilgrims are pouring into the holy city of Lhasa for the final selection and enthronement of the Dalai Lama, which is to take place on Feb. 22. Principal candidate is a bright-eyed little Mongolian boy of six, named Lamutanchu, who is alleged to have been born in the very instant that the old Lama died, and who has the backing of the Chinese Government of Kai-Shek. China holds nominal sovereignty over Tibet, is alleged to want to make it stronger.

There are two great Lamas in Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama and Pantshen Lama. The latter is the spiritual head of the nation, the former the secular head, and bears the title of Gyalpo Rinpotshe, which is to say the Glorious King.

The Dalai Lama is believed to be the earthly incarnation of a heavenly being, Avalokitesvara, or the Heavenly Word. And upon the death of a Lama, the released spirit from heaven is supposed to take up its abode in some infant after a period of from several weeks to several years. Then the monks of the great Buddhist monastery at Lhasa which he is to serve as abbott are supposed to be led to him by heaven and to know him when they see him. Rather, they are supposed to know that he is one of several children pointed out to them. And in the past the final infallible selection has usually been made by drawing lots.

There are three candidates this time. But it is expected that the lot-drawing will be dispensed with and that Lamutanchu will be named. The Chinese Government wants it that way.