The Charlotte News

Tuesday, January 13, 1942

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: Incidentally, if you, as we, were wondering, after listening yesterday to Frankly read so beautifully otherwise, what in the world, however, that apparent faux pas "puggy" means, then here we find the alternative OED definitions:

We thus had to wonder whether it was so much a faux pas or transliteration or what have you, accidentally performed, or rather some foxy maneuver by Frankly, who we know to be rather canny, and without apparent recognition of the sagacity and art thus employed in his speech patterns, tripping, even stumbling, yet even falling down the stairs entirely, seemingly incompetently on occasion, over his own tongue. Thus, as Frankly had already left the building by the time we discovered this seeming Freudian slipper, we nevertheless were able to wire ahead of his train and locate him at the stop in Richmond on his way north to an undisclosed and highly secret location. He promptly sent us the following via Western Union:

So that is how he responded. Incidentally, if you are wondering how commas got into a telegram, we inserted those ourselves, undoubtedly faithful to the way Frankly would have wished it. And if you should feel badly that we seem unduly to pick on Frankly when both Spooky and Waverley managed a few transpositions, tanglings and omissions of words themselves, think not on it. Spooky speaks so quickly that it is simply hazardous going, and we dare not interfere with his melodious delivery, while Waverley speaks so slowly that he seems to, and probably does sometimes, fall asleep every other sentence or so, and so we don't bother. But in Frankly's delivery, we find something much more interesting. Indeed, Frankly read for us twice, and both times inserted the word "puggy" for "buggy", and that after making special point at the conclusion of the first reading that the first one was no good because of that "puggy" thing. Then, he did the same thing again. Further, as he mentioned, there was the apparent mangling initially of "skirl" which he then quickly and adroitly corrected without missing a beat.

The front page today bears more good news out of Russia and Libya.

There is some light, albeit temporary, in the Philippines as a thrust by the Japanese was repelled with heavy losses, reports indicating 11 batteries having been eliminated, as the Japanese made their way toward Corregidor and Bataan. But the problems lay ahead for the Americans and Filipinos fighting mightily on this front.

Things continued to go wrong on Malaya and in Borneo. Another ray of light, however, in that latter mini-theater had occurred by virtue of the Dutch resistance to the last, repulsing the attack on the oil-rich island of Tarakan long enough to enable destruction of the oil wells and equipment so that it would not fall into enemy hands. But these movements into Borneo and Celibes were preliminary to taking Sumatra, as soon as Singapore fell--the Japanese being close enough now and able to deliver enough firepower that the Singapore population could feel the impact of the bombing 150 miles away. And from there, Java became subject to a pincer movement from Borneo and Sumatra, as also stated in the reports. This report was written by Cassandra; it would happen much as that prediction suggested, and soon. Moreover, as also discussed, Australia, the last line of defense in the South Pacific, would soon become just that, as all else fell into the hands of the Japanese. As indicated previously, General MacArthur would, in just a couple of weeks, be evacuated from the Philippines to Australia. The whole Pacific theater was gradually collapsing.

And, it is reported by the Washington Merry-Go-Round that Senator Truman was hard on the heels of government corruption which was gumming up the works on organized production, his hearing shortly to begin, to put a lid on such practices as "Dollar a Day" men and free servers who in fact were no more than corporate lobbyists acting to steer government contracts to their corporations. So much for the appearance of noblesse oblige on the part of the corporate men, even in time of the worst national emergency since the Civil War. Harry, however, undoubtedly cleaned 'em up, sending them out to the Halfaya sector to perform ablutions in the sand.

And, a worthy strap of a young Frenchman is featured, having volunteered to the U.S. Army after escaping from occupied France, giving support to the words elsewhere on the page of Charles De Gaulle that the people of France, in its traditional revolutionary spirit of liberté, égalité, fraternité, would never give in to Hitler's domination from without. The tears of the liberated in that instance, during the summer of 1944 as they greeted the Allies with true open arms, did not belie that notion, even if their weak and vacillating military and political leadership in May and June, 1940 had. Yet again, perhaps, the traditional view of that debacle in France is too harsh and pedestrian in its judgment. It might be re-evaluated with due comparison to the struggle and quick victories achieved by Japan in the Pacific against American, Dutch, British, Australian and Filipino soldiers, in the wake of Pearl Harbor. No one speaks of weak and vacillating leadership on those accounts, nor should they. Maybe the French did what they had to do to keep the country from being bombed into ruin and desolation, only making the ultimate conquering of the country that much worse. Yet, because they gave in with only a weak fight and the leadership then proceeded, ostensibly at least, to collaborate with Germany, we tend to think of it as an act of cowardice. France itself, of course, after the liberation, was as harsh on these leaders, or harsher, than the liberators, as most went either to prison or the firing squad for treason, the result of trials conducted by the new government of the Free French.

The editorial column points out in "Our Sympathy" that, as the brave Aussies asked for airplanes, the United States government, mired in a morass of pre-war bureaucracy and continuing labor issues over the conversion of automobile plants to full defense production, was unable to deliver on its promises of increased production for the nonce. That would soon change, but a campaign was on by the manufacturers to continue passenger car production for two more months. The dealers, as reported on the front page, had converged on Washington to protest that their businesses would go bankrupt if the directive went into effect to cease new car production. Their complaints could not, however, outweigh the emergent conditions in which the country found itself. All production would cease until after the war. Even then, not until 1948 would the industry recover enough to have sufficient profits to permit re-tooling to produce the newly streamlined 1949 models, eliminating the whalebacks predominating in the 1942 abbreviated model year. For the most part, the 1942 models were re-produced as new models, with only slight changes of trim and grilles, for the three model years after the war. It would be a long way back for the country, in far less superficial ways than merely the style of the automobile they drove. Battle scars would take decades sometimes to begin to heal.

"Eyewitness" tells of the first-hand account of the fighting in Malaya which the editorial finds to be reminiscent of the retreat at Dunkirk. And again Cassandra wrote the piece, all too accurately.

Dorothy Thompson instructs eloquently of the overall scheme of the Axis, as planned in Berlin the previous year, to obtain Dakar, the Azores, the Canaries, and the Cape Verdes in the Atlantic and the Dutch East Indies, Malaya, Thailand, Burma, and the Philippines in the Pacific, to enable a pincer movement, the Japanese from the west, the Nazis from the east, on South America. The German population already present there, as well as imported upper class Gauleiters, would then take command, enslaving the native population to their will as a cheap or free labor force, a non-Aryan people easily therefore subjugated and then rationalized as that intended by their gods. As the front page points out, Bolivia had already seized upon the danger, evicting the German Consul for involving himself in labor agitation over whether taxes paid by the tin mining industry should go to provincial improvements or to the Federal treasury. A Latin-American conference would soon take place to discuss unity in that sphere against the Axis, similar to the pact made by the 26 nations not to make any separate peace with the Axis and pledging all of their efforts toward defeating it.

The Bishop Tom Jimison, former News reporter, who offered up a piece for the page on December 22, writes a down-home letter to the editor urging sacrifice to win the war. And that was surely to become a masterful understatement.

And, down in the lower right corner, a rolling Moss gathers no stones down in Shelby. The question is whether he saw his brother there in Baltimore when he reached the ultima Thule of his rolling and deboarded the train. (Our apologies--we couldn't resist, mate.)

Framed Edition

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