The Charlotte News

Saturday, June 28, 1941

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: Water, water everywhere...

It might be the headline to represent a large measure of today's print.

Hugh Johnson makes negative comparison between the present suggestions of embracing Russia as an ally and Andrew Jackson's reluctant acceptance of Jean Laffite's offer of aid to defeat the British, despite in that latter instance the pirate's service proving invaluable in the victory at the Battle of New Orleans, the rough-hewn Jackson having otherwise stood on the field alone in 1815 with an outmanned, outgunned, and out-trained army of irregulars against the crack Redcoats of the Crown.

The News complains over inadequate ambulance services, dispatched, without doctors or adequate equipment aboard, by funeral homes--all leading to the death of an otherwise probably resuscitable young boy who drowned in a local pool.

On the comic page, Jan Valtin tells us in installment 24 of the manner in which Hitler came to power in Germany during 1932, an oceanographic survey in itself, one aboard Titanic. He chronicles more of the violent dueling for control between the Communists and Nazis against the peaceful Social Democrats, the latter supportive of the democratic government, leading to the fall of the democratic government May 30, 1932 as it tries futilely to put down the violence by fiat. In its place comes Franz von Papen, "ex-spy and lion of the Gentlemen's Club", as Chancellor and General Schleicher as Minister of War. Hitler offers his support provided the Reichstag is dissolved, new elections held, and the ban on Nazi storm troopers repealed. Von Papen accepts. The nation sets a course on rearming itself for the first time since Versailles, the pretext being, to avoid British and French indignation at the breaking of the treaty, to destroy Communism.

Hitler's storm troopers begin planning an offensive against Communists, "the night of the long knives". A march is planned by the Nazis in Hamburg-Altona on a Sunday in July; the Communists plan a counter-march but are refused permission by the head of the police. The Communists man high-arching rooftops along the route and begin firing down into the storm troop marchers, ricocheting bullets in the narrow streets off the bases of buildings below. The police swing into action as the marchers disperse.

Von Papen uses the disruption as proof that the Social Democratic government of the Prussian state could not preserve order, orders Prussian officials in Berlin turned out of office against the protests of the head of the Prussian government as being violative of the Weimar Constitution. The shift of power nevertheless occurs and the Social Democrats are coerced into silence on pain of arrest. Strikes and violence on the part of the Communists and Nazis follow. Elections are held on July 31 amid violence, but no clear majority prevails as the Nazis acquire a plurality of seats in the Reichstag over the Social Democrats and Communists, who come in third. The Reichstag votes overwhelmingly to reject the Government of von Papen and von Papen then dissolves the Reichstag on September 12. New elections are held November 6 amid a transportation strike in Berlin. Hitler loses substantial ground in the election but maintains a plurality. Still, however, there is no sufficient coalition to be had to enable formation of a government.

Von Papen resigns and General Schleicher becomes Chancellor. In order to curry favor among the disgruntled workers of the Communist and Nazi movements and effect some coalition by which to govern, he plans secret rearming of the masses, and provides amnesty to thousands of jailed Nazis and Communists--who then immediately turn on him and demand he step down.

Herr Komrade Krebs's adventure with Communism appears at its ebbtide insofar as German waters are concerned. Tomorrow belonged, for the time being anyway, only to the Nazis.

Meanwhile, two Marines of Charlotte, Corporals Doby and Cloniger, write from Gitmo of their imminent return home, probably for transfer to the port at High Rock, though, they stress, not to go peeking in the second-story seafood store...

Popeye is entertained with ice cream by Mrs. Jones awaiting Davy in his comfortable locker.

Water, water, everywhere...

We apologize incidentally, to Tops for yesterday's ascription to him of further harassment of women; it was Skeezix this time doing the harassing. This is why, as we have before commented, save for searching for "Lois" in the editorial cartoons, we never liked the comics much. They are downright confusing and plain silly. It is often as difficult to tell a Tops from a Skeezix as a Skops from a Teezix, and vicey versey. Not our cup of tea.

And no sooner than we should comment yesterday upon some more of that thing we label Serendipity, do we come across today a reference on the page to Charles Lamb, which naturally refers back to "Good Timing", April 18, 1940, the only other mention of him, so far as we have yet determined, within the prior 45 months of editorial pages of The News--(with due regard for the fact that we have not yet perused beyond about one-third of those whole editorial pages, which we shall eventually complete, placing them at the site as we do).

And the serendipitous timing of Lamb on the page today, with the mustard plaster of yesterday and the aluminum of the day before, is good--eerily so, for many reasons, with reference to those April 18 editorials and the events and commentary of this day in history.

Besides the continued battle for control of the Ukraine going on in the Soviet Union, the special election for United States Senator to replace Morris Sheppard, who died in April, was taking place out in Texas. New Deal Congressman Lyndon Johnson was in a head to head race with Governor Pappy Lee "Pass the Biscuits" O'Daniel, the flour salesman, hillbilly band leader turned populist pol for the illiterate. Martin Dies, Communist-hunting HUAC Chairman in Congress, was an also-ran in the race as well.

In New York City and New Jersey, Nazi spy arrests would quietly begin this Saturday after the completion by the FBI of a two-year undercover operation to infiltrate the ring by turning one of its members and using his information to catch the others. The arrest would be effected by what J. Edgar Hoover termed the "flytrap" method, arrests conducted without press and with as little notice as possible to avoid alerting the others in the ring of their impending manacles. By Sunday night, 32 of 33 suspected spies would be in custody. The individual who escaped the net for the time being, code-named within the ring "Joe K" for the Kafka character, would not be caught until August in southern Washington state. It would be the largest single netting of spies in the history of the country.

Down in Mexico, history does not record--for its only living witness, Mary Cash, did not record it for us--what with particularity went on during this, the last weekend of Cash's life--at least except for the fact that, somewhere in these last few days, Cash received a haircut with a widow's peak which made him, in Mary's estimate, resemble a rakish "El Diablo" of Faustian dimensions. He received the haircut, which she reported that he liked, at the Reforma Hotel in Mexico City.

Parenthetically, at least for a week in mid-June, one of the hotel's guests was former Nazi oil supplier William Rhodes Davis of Texas and Alabama, in Mexico to seek a new business deal with Mexico, premised not on oil this time, as that was kaput with the invasion of Russia blocking the western route by Japanese merchant ships to Vladivostok via the Tran-Siberian railway route, and the eastern route through the North Sea and Mediterranean having been long since shut down by the British blockade imposed immediately after the invasion of Poland--, but now seeking, along with Axis-sympathizer Axel Wenner-Gren, Swedish tycoon, to establish a Reich-friendly bank in Mexico City.

It was a significant weekend in history, and especially in the history of World War II, and thus also the Cold War, a continuum in many respects of World War II, certainly born of it--as hinted prophetically by "Promises" on the page today--, and so continuing at least through 1991 having its direct impact upon us. It was a weekend every bit as significant as the weekend of December 6-7, 1941, even if not nearly so dramatic in its fireworks.

But, if you should disagree with that assessment, instead opt for the fireworks display as being by far the more important, we shall let you argue it out for yourself after studying it some, as we have done over the past 17 years since discovering the significance of this relatively quiet weekend in history--and determine for yourself how it all fits together, the election out in Texas, the spy arrest in New York, and the movement of Nazi tanks and planes across the Russian frontier, not to mention Cash's death in Mexico on Tuesday, all in a fell swoop.

Who knows? Maybe we did blow up the world--maybe the uneasy warnings of that atmospheric chain reaction upon explosion of the first atomic bomb were accurate, and we are all just sitting comfortably, or uncomfortably as the case may be, quietly adrift in Davy Jones's locker.

Whatever the case, since the weekend was an important one, certainly to Cash, we intend to provide a note tomorrow as well, though obviously without a page on which to base it.

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