The Charlotte News
Friday, July 18, 1941
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: Speaking of academic freedom and the firing of university presidents for progressive views, as we mentioned the Board of Trustees did to Homer Rainey in 1944 at the University of Texas, "South Wind" tells of the similar conduct by Governor Eugene Talmadge seeking the firing by a reluctant Board of Regents of both the president of Georgia State Teachers' College and the Dean of the School of Education at the University of Georgia. Failing their compliance, he replaced members of the Board with those more hospitable to his aims, until they acquiesced to his request and the gentlemen were dismissed. The reason offered by Talmadge was that they were "foreigners"--that is to say, from outside the state of Georgia. Never underestimate Southern ingenuity to bend reality to maintain as inviolate and comprehensive of a separate country the borders of Dixie.
Meanwhile, Judge Sims of the Recorder's Court defends his stand on ruling it unconstitutional to re-route gasoline trucks around the business district of Charlotte. Given that such an act would ordinarily appear to fall within the police powers of local government or state government to protect the health, morals, safety and welfare of the people, however, we have a hard time understanding the rationale for the judge's decision. Did not the state interest in preserving public safety outweigh any discrimination against freight carriers and gasoline companies in this regard? And that disagreement being despite the fact that we have indicated before our admiration for the courage displayed by this jurist in standing up to the apparent corruption in the police department in 1939. (See, e.g., the note attached to "The Mill Grinds", July 23, 1939)
Dorothy Thompson eloquently explains today the manifold comparisons between Napoleon's debacle in Russia and that which would become finally Hitler's Waterloo.
Raymond Clapper offers the pitiful numbers of trained personnel in the American armed forces at the time, two to four divisions, 30,000 to 60,000 men, and the concern over such exiguity when compared to the huge numbers available to Hitler, 250 divisions, albeit based on full militarization of Germany since 1933, the "full employment" the Nazis touted in their propaganda. The American problem was compounded, as General Marshall had pointed out in his piece on the page of two days earlier, by the problematic fact of the limit of one year of service under the existing Selective Service Act, causing a regular turnover of trained personnel in exchange for green recruits and draftees. It was a problem. But one which would be resolved by the determination finally of a country and its citizens to see to it that Hitler and Tojo would not rule the world after the final fatal mistake was made by the Axis in attacking Pearl Harbor a mere five and a half months hence.
Installment 41 of Out of the Night tells of Jan's tightrope walk between obtaining information for the Comintern on Gestapo operations and providing, for the apparent benefit of the Gestapo, bogus information, interceded by tidbits of useless or stale information, on the Communist apparatus in Germany. The plot thickens as we near the end of Jan's saga.
And whatever it was that Daisy Mae was so upset about, we would have to defer for explanation from Al Capp. Was Daisy Alice? Or, for that matter, Maggie? In any event, 'twould appear Daisy needed a visit to Ms. Jones's locker.
Framed Edition
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