The Charlotte News

Friday, November 27, 1942

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that as the Nazis prepared to enter and seize the last of the formerly Unoccupied zone of France at Toulon, Admiral de Laborde ordered the French fleet scuttled. By the time the Nazis arrived, most of the fleet lay on its side in the harbor or was burning. All 62 warships were successfully scuttled, their captains remaining onboard to insure the destruction, most dying with their ships. The French and Germans exchanged gunfire as the last of the heavily defended ships were being prepared for the bottom of the harbor.

It was an heroic moment in the history of France, and one which signaled its true loyalty, one in dramatic contrast to that crippling day of the Nazi jig, of the coerced fate at the railroad car in Compiegne nearly two and a half years earlier.

Meanwhile, the Allies pressed a wedge in between the Nazi strongholds in Tunisia at Bizerte and Tunis by driving against Mateur, 25 miles south of Bizerte and 40 miles northwest of Tunis, as well as moving to within 15 miles of Tunis in another position, unnamed. The assumption was that the latter advance came from the British First Army, previously reported to be within 30 miles southwest of Tunis.

On the editorial page, Dorothy Thompson reports on the grand new Russian counter-offensive, speculating as to whether its intent was to attempt a broad sweep from the north and south to bottle up a third of the remaining Nazi forces at or around Rostov, or whether it would be more limited, to provide relief to Stalingrad by pushing the German forces back to the northwest while defending the Caucasus. Her speculation, especially in the conjunction “and/or”, was another of her many accurate advance assessments of the war situation in Europe.

She paints a picture of supreme Allied cooperation having enabled this new turn of counter-force in Russia, that indeed, even the tanks now being employed in the offensive were of British and American manufacture.

It is too bad that the new-found camaraderie between these nations, formerly uneasy at comradeship, could not endure much beyond the end of the war and coincidental death at the time of Franklin Roosevelt. It was, primarily, his good offices and willingness to set aside traditional political prejudices to achieve a practical rapprochement among peoples, whether across regional and party lines at home or across ethnic and traditionally unbreachable ideological barriers abroad, which set him apart from the average leader in the twentieth century, that which also, not coincidentally, has led to his consistently being properly considered one of the greatest leaders of modern times in any land. His methods were not perfect, as no leader’s are, but he got the job done under the worst of circumstances, both domestic and foreign, during his twelve years in office, and without undue stress to the systems which comprise democracy, ample doses of contemporaneous criticism to the contrary, from various malcontents in society at the time, notwithstanding.

Raymond Clapper discusses the international police force of the United Nations, proposed to be inaugurated after the war, and whether it was a viable concept vis à vis competing nationalism and traditional loyalties among nations vying in opposition to any such internationalization of even a small portion of each country's military forces, exalting it thereby as supervening each national force. He nevertheless counsels in favor of its implementation, especially limiting its deployment to utilization of the combined air forces of the principal four Allies--the U.S., Britain, China, and Russia.

The U.N. Peacekeeping Forces would be formed after the war, the first being sent in 1948 to preserve the post-war arrangement in the Middle East, with focus on the establishment at the time of the independent state of Israel, out of the former state of Palestine. About three-quarters of the peacekeeping missions have been deployed since 1990, with the impediment to their joint efficacy having been removed by the end of the Cold War.

Paul Mallon carps at administration efforts to limit incomes to $25,000, warning that it would have the effect of depressing investment and discouraging the wealthier portion of society to produce, with the consequent impact of limiting employment of the mass of workers receiving ordinary paychecks. He favors more high income earners, not fewer, to provide the work and prompt the investment needed to win the war.

In other words, he championed the old trickle-down economics rationale for riches. (It may not have been disinterested criticism, when the average syndicated columnist of the day earned reportedly in excess of $25,000 per year, some as high as $100,000.)

He stopped short of coupling his critique with heavy doses of the old scare tactic, as suggested by the synopsis of the editorial on the front page, that the cap on after-tax salaries could lead the United States ultimately into communism, even if it was certainly more than implicitly suggested in the emblazoned title of the piece--assuming he and not the editors titled it--, and a couple of somewhat subtle references within it, that the proposal could destroy the capitalistic system, and that in 1928, as the editorial column had reminded a couple of days erlier, the Communists had proposed it, just as the CIO now favored it.

This editorial, unlike most of Mr. Mallon’s, somehow let escape common sense when written: production in wartime and practically full employment were now virtually a fait accompli, thanks in principal part to the strong bonding effort of the Administration with both labor and management to forge a cooperative atmosphere to limit strikes and share in the responsibility and burden of the war production effort across classes, from the wealthy executive earning in excess of $25,000--about $330,000 in today’s dollars--down to the wage earner, lucky to be earning $50 per week, taking home less--the equivalent of an annual salary today of about $33,000.

So, why shouldn’t the fellow earning more than ten times--and often substantially more than ten times--that of the average worker be forced, in time of war, to disgorge the greater portion of his exorbitant wealth to the government coffers, the same government coffers which helped him in peacetime accumulate the capital to earn that sort of dough in the first place? It would have been ludicrous and demoralizing to the average worker not to have such an equitable distribution of relative sacrifice, to continue to permit excess profits and excess income, fueling inflation, as war production spiraled not only the national budget but prices skyward to keep pace with salaries, all as the worker was encouraged not to strike for better wages and consequently had none. Indeed, who but a greedy moron could claim today hardship with an annual salary at their disposal of $330,000 after taxes? That was the only limit proposed.

We suggest that we would be much better off as a country were it so today, even in relative peacetime. And if that is a form of communism, so be it.

Once everyone loses their homes but you, Mr. Rich Capitalist, you will beg to give back some of the filthy lucre you have immorally and unethically stolen, to the point where the bulk of the country wishes to see you flayed in the public square--and morally so. Better to give up your little rampant enterprise without soul than to wind up with no skin, Rich. You too, Richer.

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