The Charlotte News

Sunday, February 25, 1940

FIVE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: "Red Answer", below, and "Fox’s Offer" of February 29, bring to mind two scenes from a novel, part of which was shipped to us a few months back, if you recall, by our friend in the Caribbean, with the usual assurances that he had not read these editorials when in fall, 1991 he drafted these particular scenes—or so he claims. But the experts who have previously read the thing back in 1991 and 1992 do confirm and are of impeccable and unimpeachable credentials.

The names have been changed from the novel’s original nomenclature, as the names sounded oddly familiar, in simlarity to real ones; and this is from a novel. So we took our liberties there for the sake of avoiding lawsuits.

The scenes, the author tells us, were set in Shelby, a real town, however, the first on Sunday, May 12, 1940, and the latter, Sunday, May 25, 1941. (The first portion of the first scene is of the same day as the rest of it, but in Charlotte, also a real town.)

Much is omitted, of course, as we wish only to provide you but the hint of the salt-water tang awash on the shores of the Caribbean within the vivid imagination of our friend.

So here the excerpts, in odd similitude to the two editorials mentioned:

"I don't know. Mark my words, this Reynaud fellow in France, no matter how friendly he may seem to the Allies--there is something wrong. He's a fox in the hen house if you ask me. Just read this article here and you tell me.

"Now, why are you laughing at me?"

Mary moved close to Wilbur and patted his arm. "I see; Reynaud, the Fox?"

"Precisely, Reynard. And you may recall what occurred."

"I think Reynard was called in by King Noble the Lion to be duly interrogated by the other animals for his accused wrongdoing."

"Yes, and prime among the animals making the accusations was Isengrim, the Wolf. Now there is something wrong over there. And the tell-tale, I feel, will be told first on the French, then the British and then on us if something isn't done--and soon."

"Oh, you go on so brilliantly while they all await our royal personages at the front of the church. Don't you think, Nanak, that we have some responsibility to the present world around us a little? Even FDR goes to church on Sunday and has time to discuss Fala and spend some time with Eleanor. If he can, so too can you. Now, come on, get cracking. Up! Up! Come on."

As they walked out of the Frederick, and down the street by the intersection of Tryon and Park, they saw a phalanx of police vehicles by an ambulance parked in front of the Lavandula Hotel, a five-story residential hostelry, mainly inhabited by veterans of the World War. Next door, amid snaking hoses off a hook and ladder quietly and incongruously idling on a wet, ash-strewn street, three firemen were wandering through some fresh, smoldering wreckage of another, smaller hotel next door to the Lavandula, Rogue’s Fortune.

"Wonder what happened here."

"Well, we're running late. Let's not dawdle."

Wilbur stopped a moment, next to a police officer standing by the steps leading to the entrance of the stony façade, now defaced of all but the charred letters "Rog____ Fort___."

"What happened?" Wilbur stammered, with his handkerchief cupped to block the smoky flavor drying out his tongue and throat as he spoke.

The officer responded with an accented, high-pitched, throttled-up rhythm. "Mornin' to you sir, ma’am. Oh, some fella in there passed on. Reckon he was murdered. Least that's what the coroner has to say of it. 'Course I only get rumor out here on the streets."

"What happened over there?"

"Oh, fire in the night. Don't know. They think it might be arson. But, like I say, I just repeat what I hear."

"Well, who was the fella?"

Mary grunted impatiently and squeezed Wilbur's arm. Wilbur ignored the entreaty.

"Oh, he 'as a veteran. A blind man. He walked around here quite often in Winter. My partner and I always seen him hereabouts on the beat. Always said the crooks didn't get ye in the Wintertime when you'd pass him. Liked the heat, he said they did, or some such. Strange one. Friendly though. Never seemed to give nobody no problem, least of anyone that told us anyway."

The officer began untangling an elflock on his crown with a swirling index finger. He widened his eyes suddenly, in seeming signal of gradual recognition of some elision in the investigation.

"'Course, you never know."

***

Wilbur was now becoming calmly, but rhythmically, effusive: "I really think, however, that you have to realize too that there are political views being expressed there. I don't know that it’s possible to lay the blame at the feet of any one leader or any one nation. The whole problem is misunderstanding that humans are humans, no matter where they are and in what culture they grow up. We had a similar response here in the South after the Civil War as they're having in Germany now. The difference is the response to it and the mechanism in place to control it. If there's fault, it’s with what took place at Versailles. Multilateral disarmament is a wonderful concept in the ideal and I'm all for peace. The problem is policing it and enforcing the whole thing on every shore. The League just didn't have the teeth to do that and that's why it ultimately failed. Chamberlain was left with nothing with which to bargain at Munich and that's why he came home with a meaningless scrap of paper and hollow words. Of course, his problem was trying to gloss it all up, for his own political survival, I think, to be something it wasn't and further lull the British and everyone else for just the right amount of time to give Hitler his chance to strike. If only people could just boil it down to the simple neighborhood bully concept and remember what that was like--that you have to get along with that person because he's human, too, and realize that there are childhood home difficulties and such causing it psychologically; but you also have to be a little wary, not tell him everything there is to know about your family's strategy. Play a little poker."

"And a little bridge," interjected sister Muriel, as she sought the Worcestershire for husband Radcliffe--Radcliffe Bodley, Rad to those close.

"Well, that's probably right, too, Mure. I just believe that the whole matter is being misperceived in the overall because our leaders get so steeped in the facts, figures, statistics and individual personality traits of the leaders of the opponent that the overall picture becomes layered to the point of obfuscation. We have to have that layered picture but then the picture has to be simplified back down, with the new specific knowledge we have in mind, keeping in mind uppermost, I think, the overall and the general lessons and streams running throughout recorded history, and the common thread that economic deprivation allows for demagogic bullies to come along to a people desperate for being told what to do and when to do it, so that they don't have to accept responsibility for failure like little children, and yet have the freedom to go out and play on their allowance when they want to, while someone else steers the ship. 'Leave it to them. I've got better things to do. Doesn't affect me nohow.' Huh, how many times have we heard that around here?"

"So caught up—"

"Right," continued Wilbur breathlessly to the cause, uninterrupted. "These Princes come in promising nationalistic pride again and all the old common feeling of hurt and humiliation, from the whole collectivity down to the individual, will be cleansed, purified, as fresh as the driven snow. And then everyone starts marching to the Princely drummer. If the drummer is benevolent, that's fine for awhile. But that's hard to find in any one individual or small enclave of individuals over a period of time where there are no checks and balances politically with open debate, as we have here. And, over there, just like in the Old South, they actively suppress freedom of thought and debate. That's not just demagoguery, it's bedevilment. That's why we should have stopped it dead in '32 by going in there to the Chancellery through our diplomats and simply telling them outright that if you do this, put this maniacal bunch of crazies in power, we sever all economic relations cold turkey. That was Hoover’s age, still, though. There you are. But try to tell that to a Hoover sort. They will just snort and snarl and focus blankly at you and utter some calumny such as: Red, Red Roostervelt! Bosh and more bosh!" Wilbur caught his tongue and ceased for a moment, grabbing with emphasis the glass of tea next to him.

Rad instinctively took up the cause: "So caught up in the microscopic management routine to get the next fellow's paycheck and then follow up to make sure every payment 's right on time, they can't project forward to the whole thing and see that a notion of human spirit has to be brought to bear. I see it all the time at the Ford place. One time down in Liberty, they tried to get me to go in on a fellow laid up in the hospital and repossess his car because he couldn't make his payments. I wouldn't do it. I told them no, and it almost cost me the job. But they backed off finally and learned a little something from it, about compassion, maybeabout keeping everyone pulling together."

"Exactly, there, you hit it, I think, the nail on the head. It starts in the little like that." Wilbur intensified his gaze again into the afternoon sun, squinting at the various haloes encompassing the heads of his family members present. "We have models all around us for what works and what simply doesn’t. If we would get our egos out of it and realize that we all do things everyday in different arenas, some of which work and some don't. If we learn to be a little bit eclectic about it rather than trying to impose everything we do as a recipe for collective success, regardless of whether, on analysis, it really works in our personal environment to effect peace and happiness or not, we would be a lot better off. The fellow working in the mill has just as much to offer in terms of what can work on broad scales as does the intellectual or the manager in my opinion. But, tell a Clark sort-of-fellow that sort of thing and he will tell you about the love you have for the darkies and all that rot."

"There goes my brother, the Marxist, again. Is that Berkeley or Hume you are trying to quote?"

"Well, when I wrote that article on the mills a few years back, Royce, you'd be surprised how much positive response I got from just hard working people. It was rather refreshing. They could see beyond the labels to the philosophy when simply shown it a little."

Mure again joined the flow. "That's right. I've learned it time and time again with my students. They may not want to learn a thing when you get them in September, but work with them and be patient, listen a little and respond in ways to which they can relate rather than preach at them all the time and by April or so, you just might have someone ready to pass on to the next grade, a little more open to the next level of understanding. And, the first thing you know, you've got a scholar who sees more than just one side of the picture, and that means better understanding ultimately and less likelihood that we'll keep having these awful world conflicts."

"That... I believe you've captured it precisely. And if you get absolute psychopaths in there leading things as the 'teachers', ones who not only don't want to teach but want to stop teaching anything and everything except their own obscurantist dogma, without any allowance for free dissent and reflection, unless, of course, the dissent ultimately works back 'round to their way of thought--, then it's all the better for their cuittling, of course... Well, then they've won a convert. But as anyone who has read this wolfbuggy's goddamned book would have realized..."

As Wilbur's syntax began to fall apart in his increasingly excited pitch, Lutie lowered her eyes at her son and frowned sternly, but said no word. She didn’t have to.

"I'm sorry, mama," Wilbur replied to the unspoken remonstrance. "I get so carried away with this nutwork of fools and creepers. They are not just nice ol' boys with a little extremism, like this fellow Dulles says, and Lindbergh and the rest. Who are they siding with, anyway? Red-stoppers, they say. Huh! That’s nothing but pure, unadulterated--"

"Well, Wilbur, you just said it. Now, the bully has to be regarded as human at least--not to side with him, but to make him think you're not going to steamroll him either and stir his paranoia to the boiling point. And how would we have really been able to predict all of this in '32? The Germans have the right to govern themselves, don't they?"

"Oh, I agree wholeheartedly, Royce. I just mean to say that there is a wrong way and right way to coddle. You can be stern without upsetting, and draw the peaceful and cooperative response. We seem to hit one extreme of fierceness on the one side or laissez-faire on the other. And we could have understood what was likely in '32. I just traveled there, talked to some people, gauged their mood and extended to what I grew up with around here and had seen all my life, read the little rat's book, remembered my mythology lessons, and the picture was pretty clear as to what he intended. What do we need, a written, stamped message: 'I intend to be dictator of the world, to make it One Germanic People, and strip all of their rights unless they follow and worship me--support me in enslaving or getting rid of the non-Aryans'—is that it? It simply doesn't usually occur like that except maybe in overt military coups. But, here, this guy wrote a book that spelled the whole thing out clearly in '23 as to precisely what he intended. Then--

"And, mind you, I didn't say we should have fooled with their electoral process. The diplo-- But we have a diplomatic corps for a reason. We should have been discussing with them the problems of the Weimar and how to improve and bring about democratic principles and a growing economy. Of course, when your own system seems to be falling into ruin as we were, it is difficult to present it as an appealing plan to another people who we had substantially helped to defeat and humiliate. That was the real destabilizer. We-- We allowed the free world to lull while we were over here having the time of our lives. We let everything--the whole big business structure--have their way and lead the path to hell in the Twenties while the whole society played in their sandboxes with peace and prosperity as the rallying cries. And then we elected that nice, affable, altruistic administrator-technocrat to the Presidency--all because of short-sighted, silly nonsense over labels of 'Liberal' and 'Catholic'.

"Did you realize that Hoover was only the second President ever elected without having previously been elected to any office? Actually the first, if you don't count the war hero hoopla which got Grant there."

"Well, now don't forget our cousin Zach. He got there by backing off Santa Anna, and he did it against orders, too."

"Didn't forget him, papa. You've been over there so quiet today that I thought I would give you an opening. Remember, those orders were given by a North Carolinian. And, of course, Taylor didn't live long enough to do much besides obtain California's and Oregon's free admittance."

"So what you're saying, Wilbur, is that we maybe need a little more of mama's stern looks and less spitting and cussing at 'em, maybe."

J. W. nodded his smiling approval at Drey's remark. Wilbur smiled in broad self-effacing recognition, dropping his head just slightly, as he looked to his brother.

Drey continued, with a perplexed expression. "Here's a question: I want you tell me some more about what you think of the likelihood that Hitler might try to carry this over here. If he won't come over the Bering Strait, what about into New York Harbor?"

"Well, now, that's another matter entirely. The Atlantic sea coast is definitely a potential hotspot for us and I truly believe if we get into direct combat with them, it is going to start there, with some direct attack on one of our ports. I'm not predicting anything, mind you, but I can foresee that possibility if we don't get prepared better. Logically, that would be a dumb thing for Hitler to do because he would then be fighting against an industrial giant, though an ill-prepared one, and on two fronts, plus a third if he should go into Russia, as many say he soon will. But, he may think that the time is ripe now soon for that rather than let us build up our economy and get the war machine brought back up to speed. It's hard to say. That's the problem with dealing with a psychopath--hard to predict the next move. That's why we ought to be studying the myths which they study rather than trying to figure out some logical, rational strategy they may follow. They are not men in their own eyes. They are grand wizard savioursdemi-gods on horseback, only now they are mechanized horses, red ones. Like old Dixon over there or maybe Key-enoughsaviours of their national heritage, steeped in myths hundreds of ages old, as surely as the leaders of the Confederacy thought they were the incarnation of sympathetically piratical Biblical figures, fighting the evil Pharisees and Pharaoh of the North. But first, I believe, Hitler has got to deal with France, then Britain, then Russia, before he can exert anything on us, or have the mineral resources and consequent materiel to do anything in that regard. Now, he's simply pressuring, bluffing as always so far, hoping we'll come to the peace table when he finally gets to that point and then leave him alone long enough to get his rockets and so forth."

"There goes Wilbur's pipeline to the Reichstag again. If he says it, you can take your coppers to the vault." J. W. slowly formed a Cheshire grin as he concluded.

"Wilbur, who was that in there with Dixon? Did you say 'Knopf'?"

"No, no, Royce, hardly; of course not. Forget it, it's just a joke someone told me. Shouldn't have even opened up that box."

Mary intruded to relieve her friend’s sudden display of awkward stuttering. "Wilbur believes Reynaud is a problem."

"Oh, the French fellow. Why so, Wilbur?"

"Well, I believe that there is something Macbethian brewing in the foxhole over on the Maginot Line. I can't help it. Again, it's got to do with their being steeped in all their own Norse pagan mythology in Germany. I just have a suspicion. There's speculation afoot that Reynaud is going soon to bring back Petain, ostensibly to bolster morale. But that worries me, too. Petain is an extreme militarist, has little sense of the ideological, just straight pragmatism, and if he gets too much power, I believe that he may turn the keys over to Hitler and cave in. It seems only logical with the onslaught they are undergoing right now in the last couple of days."

"What then?"

"Then, the damned Lilith-screech owl has her foothold to get bombing raids on Britain. They then get Oberon and Titania re-wed on their terms and the whole Walpurgis Night scene could come to be--ultimately right here, right here to this table, right here." Wilbur banged his fist with such emphasis at the conclusion that the table shook, upsetting a candlestick which toppled into the gravy.

"Well, son, let's have faith that it won't be like that. Tell me about the sermon you all heard this morning in Charlotte."

"Oh, mama, don't get Wilbur on that again. We had to stuff him full of pudding to shut him down the first time around."

"Pudding--?" Wilbur smirked at the thought.

"Well, it sounds to me like it was from Isaiah, and I was just wondering."

"Given what I just said, mama, that’s a good surmise, starting in around Chapter 29, I suppose, but the sermon was instead some half-baked version of Ecclesiastes, if you ask me--and you did, so I offer it for what it's worth."

"Well, son, I wouldn't take the studies over that old screech-owl. It's all been done before and need not come again. Things will work out. You just keep up your editorials in whatever forum you can properly reach. You affect things from little old Charlotte more than you know. After all, look what old Dixon did from right here in this bitty town. You can persevere and balance that granite slate he tried to write so much on. 'Leopard's Spots'... Never read it. Never wanted to. Even the title never did make a scintilla of even sorghum-drip sense. If there was ever a leopard around here, it was him. And his curiosity almost killed the whole Kitty with a big 'K'. But, of course, people like him think they have nine lives and go on despite everything telling ‘em to stop."

"Is that old codger still alive?"

"Oh yes, Rad. Very much so still around. Definitely so, down in Raleigh last I heard." Wilbur stopped short, dropping into contemplation for several minutes about his mother's suggestion. The conversation around him switched to local politics, some laughter about Pappy O’Daniel out in Texas as the biscuits were passed, mild argument on various, less weighty issues, and figuring out who was to finish the last of the peach cobbler.

The late afternoon came without cooling wind and the sun still sweltered the ground, breaking the air into a prism of colors, just above the wavering pavement out on the street in front of J. W.'s and Lutie's house. Wilbur had always loved the grounds in summer and the sweet smell of honeysuckle, the blooms of summer roses along Mrs. Campbell's hedgerows parked neatly next door to the two parallel concrete strips which sufficed as the drive.

It would be one of Wilbur's last visits. The world which preceded the pivotal coming year of 1941 was slowly dissipating in the vapors of a summer Sunday spent with family leisurely discussing the approach of the Creeping Panzer Madness.

***

"Royce, I understand what you're saying. But peace isn't likely to break out--short of giving into that tyrant. And if we do, just wait until he develops more of their rocket technology and that bomb. Then what? He stood there a year ago leaning on that circular balustrade with his lieutenants in tow, projecting long shadows on the marble, looking down at that smooth, scroll-top tomb, like he owned the whole damned place--like it was his destined marker in history to be there--like Napoleon, himself, had given the directive from Elba. That's how he thinks. Thinks he's reincarnated as the grand marquis, the protector of the manifest myth of his own superimposed importance. His goal is to control the whole thing. Maybe not now. But in five, ten years."

Lutie broke in, uncharacteristically siding with one son over the other: "Wilbur's got a point, Royce. We all want peace but when the neighborhood bully comes right up to your door with an axe, some kindling and a box of matches and has burned down the whole neighborhood and says he'll leave you alone because you've got the brick house as long as you just don't call the police to him for the rest of it, you don't just thank him for his courtesies. Especially when you know he's developing himself a big machine to come bulldoze your home next year or the year after. Well, what are you going to do?"

"Listen to mama, Royce. You can't appease the old Billy Crankshorts."

"I like that, Mure," Drey laughed quietly. "Nice invention."

"Well, it's true. Old Hitler won't stop. They've been throwing bombs back at him. He just keeps coming at the British. Those U-Boats have blown up ships in New York Harbor. We can't just let him walk right in.

"But let's talk about something else. We're not going to solve it today. And Wilbur and Mary won't be here for awhile."

"Mure's right. Let's talk about some pleasant things here on this nice afternoon. Wilbur and Mary got us the day off from work. Let's enjoy it. They're waking up in Washington. Nothing we can do about it from here, today." Rad smiled and sympathetically laughed, supporting Mure’s efforts to redirect.

Drey carried the motion. "I'll second Rad."

There was silence for a bit. Wilbur had generally not been feeling up to par at times during the previous month. The swelter on this last late spring afternoon in Shelby was not aiding development of more salubrious self sanctity. He had propped his head on his arm as his eyelids began to droop involuntarily in harmony with the dripping heat.

After sensing the closure of the ticking interchange between Wilbur and Royce, Mure commented, in complete non sequitur, about the pretty magnolia blossoms in the backyard. Meurthe and Drey, always the blessed peace makers, gave immediate and hearty approval. Mary struck in on how they would miss the admixture of redolent smells pervading the air around Lutie's garden.

Wilbur slowly opened his eyes, furrowed his tired brow at this bit of sentiment, and mopped the sweat from his forehead with his handkerchief. He was himself a sentimentalist; but with the hard recognition that overindulgence in its salty strains breeds rationalized and, ultimately, institutionalized contentment with a matrix of conditions which are to the disadvantage of the many and therefore ultimately productive of malaise in the whole.

There was a time, as his favorite book of the Bible, Ecclesiastes, poetically rendered, for every purpose under heaven, including love and sentiment and romanticism. But this time in history required a niggardly approach to such self-congratulating traits of mankind. And he, as the acknowledged new voice of thought echoing from the wilderness in dust country, had a special responsibility to his own family and friends gently to mete out discipline on such fronts, to lead them, not as some romanticized, messianic charlatan from Mecklenburg, but rather as a hard realist charming in the only forum he could--on paper. He knew he had little in person with strangers. But with his family, he had to speak his mind plainly and verbally. Else, they might not get it fully, and he might not have another opportunity.

Choking back some apparent emotion and swallowing on it to mask the raising of its ugly head, he stammered, cleared his throat and appeared to be having one of his spells of self-conscious coughing. Rad, sitting next to him, reached over and patted him on his back and the top portion of his arm. Wilbur again was sweating profusely in the heat and complained of a tremendous headache.

No one could produce so much as a simper from him all afternoon.

Hard On Budgets

Buying For The Whole Country Takes Real Money

One of those rarities that pleases everybody and hurts nobody is this Stamp Plan that will be established here about March 1. The thing is really disarmingly simple. Look.

There are a lot of people, mostly relief clients, who don’t have enough to eat. On the other hand, there is a glut of certain foodstuffs. Not to dispose of them means waste, and likewise low prices for the farmers.

What could be fairer than to bring together the need and the supply, and in the course of the transaction in stamps to let grocers make sales of the surplus commodities at a profit?

Matter of fact, nothing could be fairer. The plan is so sensible that it can stand a thorough analysis.

And that analysis will show that the essence of it is for the Federal Government to give to the needy money, or its equivalent, with which to buy specified foods. In fine, to increase by so much the benefits which they receive at the public expense.

Like so many other good things, the only question is, can the Government afford it? Every householder knows how much it takes to feed a family. When you start feeding millions of families, you run into real money.

Red Answer

The Parable Of Mr. Little And Big Shot Dick Turpin

The Russian reply to Sweden's protest against the bombing of Swedish towns is even more brazen than Adolf Hitler's yelps about international law.

Mr. Little is sitting at home behind barred shutters carefully minding his own business. Mr. Little is very careful about minding his own business. True, Mr. Little knows that Mr. Big, the bully of the neighborhood, has been committing murder, rape, and arson in the house of Mr. Tiny next door, and that he, Mr. Little, is probably next on the program.

And true, also, Mr. Little, has sneaked out a shotgun to Tiny. But as for coming openly to Tiny's aid, no, no, no, says Little, shivering and hugging his knees.

After all, argues Little, I'm much too small to do anything about it by myself. There's Mr. Bull and Mr. Brave in the big houses just over the hill who are doing nothing about it. And pious Brother Jonathan over the Big Pond who is doing nothing but weep crocodile tears about it, though he has the biggest house of all. Besides, there's the Man-eating Wolf of the North showing his teeth at me and threatening to bite if I bother gentle Mr. Big. So I think I'll just wait.

But Mr. Big isn't satisfied. In the course of his continued assault on Tiny, he takes time out to go over to Little's house and fire off a brace of shotguns through the window and to set fire to his outbuildings. But when Mr. Little ventures candidly to protest--

Big lays out his pistols and growls behind baleful eyes.

"What nonsense! I was never on your premises in my life! It was certainly some other fellow, you see,"--cocking the pistols and aiming them at Mr. Little's head--"you see that, don't you, heh?"

Site Ed. Note: Rock, knock, undine or pine, as one's larruped fur might, April comes first, then darkest December's lone unkind cerofer night.

Lover

Twelve Years Service Gets Him Only A Horse-laugh

Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them--but not for love.

* * *

We may live without poetry, music and art;
We may live without conscience and live without heart;
We may live without friends; we may live without books;
But civilized man cannot live without cooks.

* * *

Consider the sad case of Mr. Melvin Miller, of St. Louis, the last of the romantics in the legitimate line. Not for him were such infidel sentiments as those we print above.

Twelve years ago, as Mr. Miller was ambling through this gloomy vale, presumably in good cheer and peace, he spied a goddess, and straightway fell to worshipping her--as was meet and proper in a young man of eighteen Summers. But Mr. Miller's passion, as the event was to prove, was no ordinary, everyday passion of the modern world, a tepid flame soon kindled and soon extinguished.

Had not Jacob served twice seven years for his Rachel? Had not Romeo died for the love of Juliet? In that tradition would Mr. Miller love.

It is of record that before Jacob bent his back to his long labors, he first cannily got the promise of the gal. But not for Mr. Miller were such gross ways of worship. Six long years he gazed in ecstasy, trembling, palpitating, before he dared to so much as ask for a date. And when, after that one walk under the moon, the lady would come no more–six years more he passed in pleading day after day, and mumbling under his breath such things as "Ask me no more" and "My love is like a red, red rose," and "Roses are red and violets are blue."

And when the lady still would not, Mr. Miller in the best medieval tradition set himself to move her to pity by exhibiting his agony in vivid fashion–chained himself to a tree under her window, vowing to stay there unfed until she relented. But, alas and alack for romance! The lady called the cops. And poor Mr. Miller, still uncomforted, had only the sad consolation of having proved that if men do not die for love, they still do sometimes go to jail for it–and that this is, in fact, an infidel world.

Road To Glory

A Michigan Man Chooses An Odd Time To Announce

The Hon. Duncan C. McCrea, of Michigan, is clearly a man who believes in the philosophy that the gods knock you down only by way of hurrying you along the way to grandeur.

The fellow has been public prosecutor in Detroit (Wayne County). But he is now under indictment for protecting the rackets in the automobile capital. Specifically, it is charged against him that he has been shaking down vice resorts for from $100 to $300 a month each, the slot machine operators for $10 a month for each machine, and the baseball lottery boys for heaven alone knows what fast swag.

That may embarrass Governor Luren Dickinson, who not long ago was looking afield to discover that bad old Manhattan made Sodom and Gomorrah look like pikers at wickedness. He has instituted ouster proceedings against McCrea.

But that does not embarrass the Hon. Duncan C. at all. On the contrary, he has taken advantage of the occasion to announce that he will run for the United States Senate this Fall, remarking complacently that the publicity involved in the indictment will be useful to him.

For solid brass-bound belief in his destiny, this is a masterpiece. For all we know, the fellow is as innocent as a little wooly lamb. But surely the charge of violating one public trust is a strange leaping-off point toward another and greater public trust.

Converts*

The Magic Of Self-Interest Makes Two States Righters

Two new champions of States Rights have suddenly arisen in the Senate. One of them is the Hon. Scott Lucas of Illinois, and the other is the Hon. Sherman (presumably after that great defender of States Rights, William Tecumseh Sherman) Minton.

It is, to be sure, a little startling. Neither gentleman has hitherto confessed to any great tenderness for the doctrine. Both have been strict New Dealers who toed the line regardless of States Rights or anything else. And the Hon. Minton, at least, has had some very pointed things to say about Southern slave-owners and labor-sweaters who were everlastingly raising the cry of States Rights.

Still, their sudden enthusiasm for the cause is perhaps not inexplicable.

Occasion for it is the Senate Election Committee's okay of an amendment to the Hatch Law--the law that prohibits Federal employees from engaging in or being bulldozed into politics--which extends its provision to State employees who get any part of their pay from the Federal Government, an army numbering half a million in the nation.

And these employees are, of course, greatly important to state machines, in Indiana and Illinois as elsewhere. And--Mr. Minton is a very great beneficiary of the Kelly-Nash machine in Illinois.

Maybe these great humanitarians aren't so different from Southern slave-owners and labor-sweaters, after all.

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